We were lucky to catch up with Tom McCloskey recently and have shared our conversation below.
Tom, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
To create anything meaningful one must take risks, cliche’ I know, but it’s true. This is why making art is so hard. If I am playing it safe, or if I am not changing it up, I am making worthless trash. There is something about being on the edge, a little uncertainty, a littles anxiety, that is where the magic happens. Just stay out of my head, and just create. No risk–no art.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am an artist based in South Philadelphia, where I live with my wife and three children. As long as I can remember I was making art, starting from the days of copying comic book heroes to the study of the masters. I attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where I received the J. Henry Schiet Travel Scholarship and I also attended The University of Pennsylvania. There are several major events that define me as an artist: childhood poverty, my near death experience through addiction, my mother’s death who was on life support the last year of her life, and the birth and joy of my three children. This is why my work delves into heavy hitting themes such as life and death, the interplay of suffering and pleasure, and the balance between order and chaos. My current series of paintings utilizes the expressive marks and contrasting color to express the human condition. For me art is my life line.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
As far as a goal or a particular mission that drives my creative journey? To be honest… I really don’t know why. I just do it and when I do, I have a feeling of fullness and if I don’t, then I have a feeling of emptiness. And If anyone happens to like my paintings, drawings or sculptures…then that is a bonus.. But I always do it first and foremost for myself. And so anything after that, if it’s either exhibiting, or selling a piece, or a compliment, is all icing on the cake. For me, making art is as mysterious as being itself, so what drives me to make art? I guess, life itself.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Literature and movies are immensely important to me, they give me the nutrients and the creative energy to create, for sure! Some of my favorite writers are Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse, Camus, Melville, Arthur Miller, Kafka, to name a few. There are two books that I always come back too and that is Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund, and Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Every few years I reread these two books, because they tackle the big themes of the human experience. As far as movies go, same thing, heavy hitting themes confronting the human condition. To List a few of my favorites, Wim Wenders Wings of Desire, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kurosawa’s Rashomon, George Lucas’ Star Wars and Zucker and Abrahams’ Airplane!.
Contact Info:
- Website: tommccloskey.art
- Instagram: tom_mccloskey_art
- Facebook: Tom McCloskey Art Collectors