Bob Tomlinson's canvases combine oil paint with elaborately textured and printed papers, as well as computer manipulated photographs. The sensuous color and bold, sinuous contours of these elusive and lyrical paintings play on the tension between figurative references and abstract forms. The pain... Read more
Bob Tomlinson’s canvases combine oil paint with elaborately textured and printed papers, as well as computer manipulated photographs. The sensuous color and bold, sinuous contours of these elusive and lyrical paintings play on the tension between figurative references and abstract forms. The painter believes that there is no clear distinction between naturalistically depicted or abstracted figures. As art critic Lawrence Downes wrote: “Tomlinson employs classical anatomy as a vehicle for gestural abstraction.” Focusing on form and rhythm as formal autonomous entities, the artist sets his figures hovering in baroque atmospheres awash with subtle color harmonies.
Tomlinson’s themes are substantial and implore us to search our memories and connections to myth as well as to reality, but they are executed with an elegant surface treatment that often belies the anguish & emotions that lie deep in the layers of the work.
