FULL STOP: Tom Burckhardt

FULL STOP is an elaborate installation fabricated entirely of cardboard and black paint. It takes the form of a mythical modern artist’s studio, complete with hundreds of tools, paint brushes, and other supplies, each constructed with great attention to the smallest detail. FULL STOP examines an artist’s inner sanctum, and explores notions of creativity, inspiration, and the lives of individuals who helped shape the art world of today.

The installation is filled with specific art historical references including Jackson Pollock’s shoes, Jasper Johns’s Savarin can, and Edward Hopper’s potbellied stove. Entering the installation, the viewer animates the space while experiencing an artist’s creative dilemma first hand. As Burckhardt states: “This walk-though environment is full of the clutter and paraphernalia of the modern painter, toiling in romantic obscurity against the existential void. Except he/she doesn’t seem to be succeeding. A basic lack of ideas has crippled production despite having all the right materials: tools, art supplies, art books and postcards of past masters’ work at hand. The highly detailed and slavishly worked whorl of the stuff of art-making and bohemian existence, all carefully constructed of cardboard and painted in a cartoon-like manner, belie the contradiction at the center of the room: a blank canvas sitting on the easel.”

Tom Burckhardt was born in New York in 1964 and has spent his entire life there. He graduated with a B.F.A. in Painting from SUNY Purchase in 1986 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture that same year. He has been exhibiting since 1992 at various New York galleries including Tibor De Nagy Gallery and Caren Golden Fine Art, as well as Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco, California.

FULL STOP  is organized by the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Ohio.