Tom Banks

Tom’s paintings are house shaped. Emerging from the wall, hanging in limbo, the front and sides of these houses visible, the rear unseen, submerged into the wall. Each surface flat, painted with the familiar signifiers of a house. 

The homes are dark and lack the signs of occupation. The windows will not let light, nor a furtive glance, through. No comforting electric glow warming the curtains, no muffled sounds of TV-land; there are no manicured lawns or shrubbery surrounding them. The viewer walking amongst these paintings is an interloper in a vacant suburban setting. 

A suburban environment that reflects estates all across the UK populated by houses the same as those that exist in the town in which Banks grew up.  

For some, suburbia represents the values of aspiration and identity.  For others it is the epitome of the mediocre and uninteresting. Either way suburbia is no longer (if ever it were) a benign location. It has a tangible tension, the voids between the buildings holding as much influence as the people who inhabit them.

The presence of absence in this work provokes an impression that stories have been left untold, drawn curtains might be hiding subversive behaviour, net curtains concealing those watching trespassers attempting to pass through. 

Indeed, while walking these streets, the sheen of respectability is soon replaced by a sense of disquiet, the uniformity of the architecture conjuring up ominous notions of conformity.

Perhaps suburbia is a zone that subsumes those that cross it's threshold, promising much, once entered never escaped.

During the 12 week period leading up to the exhibition at the blackShed, Tom Banks, the blackShed’s Kenton Lowe, Tom Penney and Martha Tanner, worked with staff and a group of 16 secondary school students from New Horizons school. This is a very special school dedicated to supporting students with social, emotional and mental health difficulties.

The project aimed to examine the possibilities, ideas and experiences of students detached from mainstream education.

With reference to Tom’s own practice, a series of workshop activities were developed to explore a few fundamental artistic principles in Tom’s work, and in collaboration with the students, a challenging and extraordinary piece of artwork has been created. This artwork was included as part of the exhibition at the blackShed.

The workshops have helped us to realise that art is something that we can do. They have given us opportunities that we don’t normally get to do on an everyday basis at school. The artists have taken time to come out to show us the amazing things we can do to be creative.

student quote

This Project would have not been possible possible without the additional support from the following organisations:

New Horizons School, Hastings

SABDEN

Rother District Council

Sussex District Council

Sussex Arts Partnership

Carphone Warehouse

The Phone Doctor, Hastings

blackShed gallery

Arts Council England