About
Tom Skelly’s latest paintings have a parallel to Romantic era art with a narrative emphasis on human drama and interaction. Modernism also seeps into the paintings with physical collage elements embedded into the composition. This marriage of opposites is blended into a unified image where the viewer can break down the system or connect the dots for a resolution. The source of the paintings are the split-second frames from movies and evolved into an unrestrained ambiguous story. The paintings are coupled to his radio program the "Sound of Pictures", a hand-crafted movie music show that includes anything that requires a soundtrack. The show airs on KSPC 88.7fm and kspc.org on Tuesdays from 11am - 12noon (replayed Wednesdays from 9-10am), and also on KXRY Portland at XRAY.FM (Sundays 8-9am and archived anytime.)
His work also includes hand-built sculptures made from pre-fabricated materials such as jigsaw puzzles, paint-by-number sets, broken appliances, plastic models, and any other ready-made objects that shows potential for an evolution into curious and thought provoking art forms.
Skelly’s work can be summarized as a silent collaboration with outside influences ranging from music, film, architecture, and literature. His exposure to these objects and experiences creates a brew that results in an original visual statement that speaks to both worlds with a nod toward irony.
Biography
Tom Skelly was born in St. Louis Missouri. He received a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University in Painting in 1979. Upon graduating he began exhibiting and teaching painting, drawing and design.
In 1980 Skelly accepted an Artist In Residence position to design and implement a multi-disciplinary fine arts program at the California Institution for Men in Chino. During this time he began collaborating with artists in a variety of disciplines including theater and music and literature. This work led to a six year teaching position at UCLA on the subject of the Artistic Culture of the Incarcerated. In 1985 he began hosting a weekly three hour radio program at KSPC Pomona College. Since then Skelly began producing radio and audio art for gallery installations, performances, and National Public Radio.
Treasury of Claremont Music 2013-2020
In the late 1980’s, I developed a form of presentation that combines documentary with exhibition which I call docu-bition. It joins and connects pictorial images with text in an aesthetic and educational display of a chosen subject. For this project, I’ve expanded it to include audio musical selections to broaden the portraits of the featured musicians.