Tom is the JamFactory Icon for 2020. The Icon series celebrates the achievements of South Australia’s most influential visual artists working in craft-based media.
Tom will also frequently be in the Gallery for the duration of the exhibition painting away, turning the cuboid boxes into giant alphabet-blocks… so you are likely to see him when you visit! Tom last showed in Gallery One in 2009, where he took over the space for Moore is More, and filled the gallery with ponds full of hybrid creatures sitting under fountains, cities with fantastical wheeled creatures and large scale prints of wonderous creations.
Abundant Wonder turns the gallery space into a glorious play on scale with giant building blocks, glowing creatures, and glass come to life through multiple animation screens.
This exhibition is the culmination of years of work, spanning a PhD and a long term dream. We really hope that many of you will have a chance to see the exhibition in person (multiple times). It is fantastic that this show will then be touring Australia for the next 3 years! It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to have an exhibition that will be able to reach so many people and new audiences to Tom’s work.
– 5 February 2021 – Jamfactory:Seppeltsfield, Seppeltsfield, SA
– 7 May 2021 – National Art Glass Gallery, Wagga Wagga, NSW
– 16 July 2021 – Hamilton Gallery, Hamilton, VIC
– 24 September 2021 – Millicent Regional Gallery, Millicent, SA
– 3 December 2021 – Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, Caboolture, QLD
– 11 February 2022 – Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery, Bundaberg, QLD
– 15 April 2022 – Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Windsor, NSW
– 24 June 2022 – Griffith Regional Art Gallery, Griffith, NSW
– 3 September 2022 – Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth, NSW
– 4 November 2022 – Canberra Museum and Art Gallery, ACT
– 25 February 2023 – Geelong Gallery, Geelong, VIC
– 28 April 2023 – Riddoch Art Gallery, Mount Gambier, SA
– July 2023? – Bay Discovery Centre, Glenelg, SA
This is the plan, but plans may change, especially with how 2020 has been. Please look at the website closer to the time of the exhibition dates if you want to see it at the other venues. I will keep updating this list if this information changes due to unforeseen circumstances and COVID related border restrictions.
JamFactory is located at 19 Morphett Street, Adelaide, SA
https://www.jamfactory.com.au
Here’s what the Jam has to say about Tom:
Tom Moore is one of Australia leading glass artists and over the course of his career has carved out a singular voice within Australian glass art-making. His engaging, sophisticated and technically challenging hybridised animal/plant sculptures and the fantastical worlds they inhabit are deeply embedded in the history of glass-making and scientific discovery.
Through the taming of the molten liquid material of glass, Moore creates complex diorama worlds within which his fanciful hybridised protagonists act and interact. In his creation of a universe that seems as ominous as it is beautiful, Moore’s artworks are disarmingly playful in their use of narrative to critique the pressing social and environmental concerns of our contemporary epoch.
A rigorous and technically masterful glassblower, Moore possesses skills that have been refined through what can be considered akin to a traditional glass blowing apprenticeship, in which techniques are acquired through continuous making, especially through the repetition of production-based crafting. Gaining a strong technical foundation through thousands of hours of disciplined production of bottles, jugs and vases, Moore’s characteristically fantastical creations are inspired by unusual historical objects, such as zoomorphic vessels that combine a functional object and the representation of an animal, and trick glasses that are intentionally confusing and difficult to use.
In Moore’s words:
The works combine historical glass forms with themes of interconnection that liquefy the borders between animal, vegetable, mineral and personal. The resulting characters such as plantbirds and pototofishcars echo the metamoprhic quality of glass — a material well known for its paradoxical nature and aptitude for creating optical illusions.
Reaching back in time to the Renaissance, the golden age of technological advancement in Venetian glass techniques, Moore works with a multitude of highly detailed traditional twisted patterns such as ballotini, zanfirico reticello to create the dancing and colourful decorations within the bodies and appendages of his lifeforms. An ardent environmentalist, Moore’s recent postgraduate studies have caused him to look closely at the environmental impact of glassmaking on the planet as well as the causes of climate change as a global concern. In the artist’s own words: Glass has enabled many technological, social and aesthetic benefits. Unfortunately, glassmaking also contributes to climate change and environmental degradation. I seek to address the contradiction of utilising a particularly resource-depleting and polluting traditional craft to address troubling ecological issues with hope and humour. Consequently, I am not interested in presenting depictions of nature that are simply beautiful.
Moore’s playful exhibitions are intended, as the artist puts it, “to be marvellous and entertaining, presenting a playful subversion of order and rejection of rationality”. Striving to invigorate the audience experience has led Moore to embrace new technologies through collaboration with digital photographers and animators. His aim is to produce exhibitions that are challenging in content and form while offering the audience an inspiring visual experience.
Tom Moore was born in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory in 1971 and currently lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia. He graduated from the Australian National University’s Canberra School of Art in 1994, trained in production techniques at JamFactory until 1997 and worked as the Production Manager in JamFactory’s Glass Studio for 15 years. In 2019, he was awarded a PhD at the University of South Australia for his thesis Agents of Incongruity: glassmaking embraces nonsense to navigate monsters, wonder and dread. This PhD was focused on undertaking practical investigations of glass and mixed media, focusing on hybrid lifeforms and the Anthropocene. Moore has received a number of major prizes, including the 2013 Ranamok Prize of Contemporary Glass, the 2013 Tom Malone Prize and the 2014 City of Hobart Art Prize. His artworks can be found in many prominent public collections including the Museum of American Glass, New Jersey, USA; the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, GOMA Brisbane, Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Powerhouse Museum.
There are grand plans afoot!
