Tom’s professional training and career has been as a geologist, and he has worked in various capacities around the world. The geologist must be able to re-create a bygone world from the evidence of a few samples of rock. The artist creates previously un-dreamt worlds from bits and pieces of his own reality. Training and experience in the Earth Sciences have shaped the way Tom perceives the physical world - giving him the ability to think in four dimensions, the three spatial dimensions and “deep time.” Living among other cultures has shaped the way he perceives people, their relationship to the Earth, and to each other.

Tom’s sources of inspiration are as broad as the world itself - and almost anything can trigger an idea. His style tends to realism - a consequence of his well-exercised “right brain”. However, he is not interested in just making a bunch of pretty pictures. Most of his work is narrative, giving viewers clues from which to construct their own stories about a place, an event, an idea. He seeks to arrest people’s attention, to challenge viewers’ perceptions of reality, to get them to think deeply about who they are in relation to the world around them. Many of Tom’s paintings employ visual dissonance, the juxtaposition of realistic elements against highly stylized backgrounds. His work appears in private collections around the country.

Tom maintains a web gallery for himself and his wife, Deb, at: earthfriendarts.com.