Tom Dimond, Art Explorer

Tom Dimond considers himself an artistic explorer. He shared the story of his evolution as an artist during the Anderson Artists Guild meeting on April 8.

Inspired early on by the grid, he started by abstracting letters and grids, then moved into circle grids in watercolor or acrylic paintings and silk screening. He has always found inspiration in his experiences, such as when he drove a forklift in a textile mill to load rolls of cloth into vats of color, when he spent time at artist residencies, when he discovered a beautiful tile on a trip to Italy, or when he simply went for a walk or listened to music.

One of his techniques is to score paper so that paint bleeds into the scored areas. In his collages, he incorporates odd items that appeal to him, from car air fresheners to flattened metal disks, cartoons, and his son’s drawings. During the meeting, he cited one artist who used the end papers his mom employed giving permanents in her work as a hairdresser. Among the artists whom Dimond admires are Kurt Schwitters, Jacques Villeglé, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Mimmo Rotella, Frank Stella, and Robert Motherwell.

Dimond will offer a two-day workshop on mixed media collage at the Anderson Arts Center on April 19-20. He will guide participants in using monotypes and photo transfer to create their own collages. His personal process starts with gestural marks on watercolor paper. He applies shapes, then monoprints, then scrapes modeling paste on top and scratches into it. Next comes color, all in efforts to transform what he started with. “I’m trying to obscure the image,” he said. “I’m interested in holographic marks.” For more information about his mixed media collage workshop, visit https://andersonarts.charityproud.org/EventRegistration/Index/1754.

Ten of Dimond’s pieces are part of a current exhibit that runs through August 2 at the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts at Clemson University. For more information, visit http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/faculty-emeritus-tom-dimond-exhibits-five-decades-of-art-in-the-brooks-center/.

For more information about Dimond, visit http://tomdimond.com/.