Tom Price: Unearthing Narrative in Material and Form

17 hours ago7 min read5 comments

For sculptor Tom Price, the studio is a stage for material transformation, a place where industrial and discarded substances are coaxed into revealing their hidden histories. His practice is a deep, investigative dialogue with his chosen mediums—bitumen-coated rope, recycled plastics, and other unconventional materials.Price approaches these substances not as inert matter to be dominated, but as collaborators with their own stories to tell. Through a process that blends alchemy with meticulous craftsmanship, he coaxes forms that exist at the intersection of the human figure and the geological.A torso emerges from tangled rope, simultaneously recognizable as a body and as a stratified, earth-like construct. This is not traditional representation, but rather an evocation.The figure is present, yet it also functions as a landscape, a memory, and a commentary on the material's own lifecycle. Price's work compels us to consider the journey of the plastic from consumer product to artistic medium, or the ancient, organic origins of the bitumen.His material experiments serve as rehearsals—a rigorous, often unpredictable process of discovery where a failed cast or an unexpected reaction can lead to a more profound breakthrough than the original concept. The final sculptures are the performance: silent, potent presences that speak to the compelling tension between the explicitly shown and the hauntingly suggested, and between the familiar human form and the abstract forces that shape our existence.

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#Tom Price

#sculpture

#material experimentation

#figuration

#abstraction

#artist interview

#contemporary art

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