ABOUT ME

TOM SIPAS.   (Tomas Sipavicius: b.Vilnius, 1970).

Tom Sipas paintings can be compared to a balancing act between colour, shape and line, surface and space, abstraction and object. The individual, coloured surfaces are applied to the canvas with strong brush strokes and expressive graphic marks, which are continuously worked over for developing new layers (aka new worlds). Integrated into the process of painting, are more or less defined non-objects, like everyday feelings of anxiety or beautiful moments from the thick of life, which are sometimes contoured in a linear manner or depicted flat, painted over or partially exposed.

In his paintings, the artist combines an enormous variety of materials and with this approach stays true to his style of art in an unafraid and “risktaker” manner, which he realizes over and over in gallery installations and private collections. He uses a wide palette of mixed media, collage, xerox printing, on or inside his world of images.

In Tom Sipas colour-intensive imagery world, the trick is not get caught up in the final object, just keep and feel everything loose between layers of non-figurative space and play intuitively.
The confrontation with and combination of painting and working with different materials on canvas leads inevitably to a journey of discovery into the playful-sensual and most of all energy-laden artistic world of Tom Sipas, which leaves much room for one’s own stories, inviting thoughts to roam.

Date and place of graduation:
1989-1990:
Vilnius Academy of Arts (VDA), Vilnius, LT.
1992-1998:
Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest, HU.
Painting Dept. of  Dóra Maurer.
1993-1994:
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, (scholarship) Antwerp, B.
1991-1995:
MOME. Dept. of Photography & Graphics, Budapest, HU.
1995-1998:
Master Degree at the International Ceramic Studio, Kecskemét, HU.

Selected exhibitions:
* Buy or Die, R.A.M. Galerie, Arnhem, NL.
* Moon’s Light, B&W Kunst Galerie, Salzburg, AT.
* The Works, Magdolna Torony, curated by Kinga Veress, Budapest, HU.
* Life in Vilnius, Gates Gallery, Vilnius, LT.
* Trialogue With Contragame, City Port Gallery, Klaipeda, LT.
* Sex, Life & Angels Series, Kutani International Art Expo, JP.
* Who Wants To Be My Art-Dealer?, ST-ART Art Fair, Strasbourg, F.
* The Ads Are On! I Gotta Take a Leak, I.C.S. Museum, Kecskemét, HU.
* The Interference, Collins Gallery, Glasgow, GB.

Works in public places:
* International Ceramic Studio (I.C.S.) Museum, Kecskemét, H.
* Applied Art Museum, Budapest, H.
* Savaria Museum, Szombathely, H.

Some Publications & Books:
* Painted Clay by Paul Scott, A&C Black Publishing
* The Ceramic Surface Decoration by Matthias Ostermann, A&C Black Publishing
* The Complete Potter by Steve Mattison, Quarto Publishing, London