Tom Mead

Portraits, figures, and characters have always been the main focus of my work. The fractured and overlapping nature of my paintings conveys a sense of life and movement over time and explores the relationship between traditional painting and technology using 'glitches'.
Film has a huge influence on me, to compensate for my lack of camera knowledge I try to be a director in my paintings. This means planning a scene, composing the shot and deciding what would happen over a length of time. Utilising this aesthetic has pushed me to paint scenes I hope make onlookers question the emotions of the subject and their relationship to the environment I choose to place them in, with themes such as identity and existentialism permeating throughout.
I specifically focus on people and the views from my own generation, and what it means to be a young person in Britain today. This includes careers, relationships, social media, and now the pandemic.