Tomas Harker’s painting address the nature of meaning in conditions of mediated experience and hyperreal saturation. Sources are treated indiscriminately of hierarchical values, collected from varied systems of image production and distribution. These include film screen shots, iPhone photos, art history and social media. The subjective and physical presence of painting is used as a means to interrupt the groundlessness associated with the sense of continual semiotic free-fall. Complex histories behind images are drawn upon, exploring new sets of associations. The paintings are often ambivalent or foreboding, they resist easy travel as non-linear narratives are subsequently created.
Tomas Harker lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include I haven’t been Sleeping, Screw Gallery, Leeds, UK (2021); Third Nature, Copeland Gallery, London, UK (2021); A Sea in Suspense, Bo.lee Gallery, London, UK (2019). Group exhibitions include Apotrope, Cob Gallery, London, UK (2022); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London, UK (2021); There’s something about Painting, Tatjana Pieters, Ghent, Belgium (2019); Cite, Bo.lee gallery, London, UK (2018); Syzygy, Leeds Arts University, Leeds, UK (2018). In 2018, Harker was awarded the Ingram Collection purchase prize.