Tom Rickman
Tom was born in the City of London in 1960. After studying, he
lived and worked in West Dorset. During this time he used a beach
hut as a studio, painting the light and changing atmosphere of
Lyme Bay. Sarah Brittain Tom Rickman A soldier will tell you the most deceptive times of day are just
before daybreak and between dusk and nightfall. It is during those
mysterious moments the eyes play tricks. That is when you call
out the guard against an advancing army, which dissolves before
your eyes. That is when Shakespeare’s Burnham Wood came to Dunsinane.
T.S. Eliot has named that moment when time appears to stand still
and when the horizon seems to become infinity ‘the still point
of the turning world’. John Miller 2002
Discovering the Cornish Coast on a walking holiday in 1982 he
realised a yearning to live and work close to a rugged and romantic
coastline. Eventually, in 1992 he moved to West Penwith and fulfilled
this dream - to sit on the edge of a vast ocean and paint its
moods and splendour.
Tom also works in the Scottish Highlands, Nantucket Island USA
and Sicilly. Although an accomplished landscape painter he is
drawn towards the simple minimalism of the subject of the sea
and sky, making his point of interest the horizon, where these
two elements are compressed.
Tom Exhibits widely in the West Country, London and the USA.
To slip out into the twilight and open ones eyes to the last few
embers of the day is a wonderful luxury. It is a way of cheating
the day by squeezing the last few drops of colour before night
falls.
Twilight is a specific time of place. It begins at the point the
sun sets. As this happens I start to look. The air, atmosphere
and spaces become charged with vibrant colours as the evening
starts to merge towards nightfall. Even as a child I was drawn
to the beauty and mystery of this time. And now I find it is resurfacing
in my work .
As a painter it is a most impractical time to work. When outside,
I find myself racing against the dimming light. Colours become
misleading, shapes blur into each other. So I make colour notes,
sketches and diagrams of what I experience, and rely on my memory
and sense of place to take these things back to my studio. Amongst
the Twilight, I tend to sit and absorb the sensations, when thoughts,
memories, reflections of the day seem to hover amongst the light.
In this external dimness there seems an internal clarity.
Before coming to live in Cornwall, Tom Rickman occupied a beach
hut on the Dorset coast, where he made numerous studies of the
horizon throughout each hour of each day. He discovered that at
dawn and dusk he felt most enlivened. If you have never been there,
look again at Tom’s paintings. Better still, go to a beach just
before dawn or at dusk and experience it for yourself. Then you
will hear the music in Tom’s paintings.
The Great Atlantic Galleries
5 Bank Square, St Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall TR19 7HH
International Tel: 44 1736 788911/786016 (within the UK: 01736
788911/786016)
e-mail: gallery@greatatlantic.co.uk