Tom Blake's floating lines

Tom Blake. Courtesy the artist.

Tom Blake’s practice draws on fragmented moments, looped imagery and recurring motifs as potential sites for contemplating the psychological, architectural and technological frameworks that surround us. Tom has exhibited in Australia, Japan and Italy, and has undertaken residencies with Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Museo de Arte Moderno Chiloé (MAM), Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC), North Metro TAFE, Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio, and Parramatta Artists’ Studios. He was a 2013 recipient of a Clitheroe Foundation Mentorship.

This conversation took place in March 2021 on the occasion of Tom Blake’s new Firstdraft Close Contact commission, Holding onto the stream for No Show at Carriageworks.

Firstdraft: In a way, your practice is a continuous line drawing – your work at Carriageworks stems from an exhibition that you presented at Firstdraft a few years ago – it’s hard to turn away from moving water – which also seeped into the bathrooms. What influenced you to take this first step outside of the gallery?

Tom Blake: Oh that’s a nice way to describe it and it feels related to this idea of the ‘floating lines’ within a practice which can form connections and links between different bodies of work and exhibitions over time…

The show at Firstdraft moved between the gallery and the bathroom in response to a few elements that came together in that space: an archive of previous exhibitions stored in plastic boxes in the terrazzo shower cubicles, the presence of a doorway between the showers and the gallery which had been covered over and a piece of writing by Lyn Hejinian which repeated the same series of sentences across the text to create new meaning at different points throughout a life, including the line ‘it’s hard to turn away from moving water’ which became the source for the show’s title…

FD: Drawing is central to your practice, an expanded approach that takes you into different spaces and surfaces. Do you still sketch, and if so, what forms do you find yourself gravitating towards?

TB: All the time! Drawing (and looping videos) is where it all starts for me... the forms vary but there is often an element of repetition, fragmentation or a gesture/movement that can be felt through the composition.

Tom Blake, Holding on the the stream, 2021, vinyl drawings, dimensions variable, installation view (detail), No Show, Carriageworks, Sydney. Commissioned by Firstdraft. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy the artist.

FD: holding on to the stream – what is the significance of this title?

TB: Here ‘holding on to the stream’ can refer to the act of reaching into a stream and attempting to hold on to the water but it could also relate to the act of gently holding someone’s arm to check their pulse as it flows through their body… both the moving water and pulse are only felt in the moment of holding… rather than being something that can be isolated, taken away or kept…

“the forms vary but there is often an element of repetition, fragmentation or a gesture/movement that can be felt through the composition.”

FD: Who and/or what have been the most important influences on your practice thus far?

TB: Etel Adnan is someone I often return to: Surge, Time, Master of the Eclipse, The Spring Flowers Own… and most recently Shifting the Silence. Amy Sillman for the way she talks about bringing different elements into an exhibition and figuring out what conversation they’re having with each other.. Edward Yang’s films for the way they draw out time and evoke a heavy stillness.. which I just want to sit inside of. Betty Woodman for her use of colour and form and the way she found generative ways to continue making work throughout her life while adjusting to different limitations. Also Lina Bo Bardi, Katinka Bock, Agnes Varda, Paul P, Runa Islam, Jürgen Partenheimer, Simone Forti, Belen Uriel, B. Wurtz, Susan Howe, Édouard Glissant, Yvonne Rainer, Shimabuku, Lois Dodd, Patricia Treib, Bruno Munari, Moyra Davey, Anne Truitt, Kate Newby, Georges Perec, Veronica Peña, Joanna Margaret Paul.

Tom Blake, loop, 2018, water fountain pump, shower, 200 × 60 cm, installation view (detail), it’s hard to move away from turning water, 2018, Firstdraft, Sydney. Courtesy the artist.

Tom Blake, coins (uu) 2019, hand-etched de-silvered mirror, light box, Tasmanian oak, 30 × 40 cm, installation view (detail), Fremantle Biennale. Courtesy the artist.

FD: Carriageworks as a site dictates a certain scale and engagement from artists, and yet there’s a beautiful quietude to your work there. How important is this space of encounter and discovery for you?

TB: Carriageworks is a space with quite a lot going on visually... rather than attempting to compete with this, I was looking to position the works in a way that relied on the existing architecture…

Tom Blake, holding the stream, 2018, vinyl drawings, dimensions variable, installation view (detail), All the parts I like about you, 2018, Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist.

FD: Do you have a favourite or particularly memorable exhibition that you saw at Firstdraft, and why?

TB: There have been so many wonderful shows! Rhiannon Newton’s exhibition Doing Dancing (with Brooke Amity Stamp, Ivey Wawn, Lizzie Thomson, Trish Wood and others) was particularly memorable… the performance and the ethereal recordings that remained in the gallery space were both really special.

FD: Where to next? What projects and plans do you have for the immediate and longer future?

TB: A group show in June at Olsen Annexe with Danica Chappell, Emily Galicek, Yvette Hamilton, and Elena Papanikolakis (curated by Benjamin Clay). An artist book with Dominique Chen, titled Bauxide, which will be published in October by A.P.E. as part of the Lost Rocks 2017-21 series. Maybe a project in New Zealand next year.

Tom Blake, moving in circles, 2018, cyanotype, artist-made brass frame, 30 × 40 cm, installation view (detail), it’s hard to move away from turning water, 2018, Firstdraft, Sydney. Courtesy the artist.

“I was looking to position the works in a way that relied on the existing architecture”

Tom Blake, index, centre, 2020, cyanotype, artist-made frame, 30 × 40 cm, installation view, KNULP, Sydney. Courtesy the artist.

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