Illusions by Tom Eckert

Artist list

Tom Eckert

"My sculptures are formed entirely of wood and then painted. I use traditional processes to carve, construct, laminate and paint my pieces. Coming from a painting and drawing background, I am still interested in applying some of those techniques to my sculptures. My choice of paint is mostly waterborne lacquer applied using both spray guns and brushes.

Forms carved to suggest cloth recur in many of my pieces. By tradition, cloth has been widely used to conceal and shroud objects in practices ranging from advertising to church rituals. Covered forms are often more evocative - with a sense of mystery absent from the uncovered object by itself.

Since childhood, I have been curious about and amused by mistaken impressions of reality presented as part of my visual experiences. One of my earliest recollections, on a car trip, was my perception of the wet, slick highway ahead that turned out to be an illusion, a mirage. The revelation that I was fooled, visually and intellectually tricked, stuck with me. This visual deception is now the basis for my creative direction. When this idea is applied to my compositions, a sense of the impossible happens - for me, magic."

Tom Eckert, 2014