Thomas Houlihan

As witness to the world, an observer, one often left head-spun by the complexities of life and human connection, drawing and mark-making serve as necessary visual language to express what I cannot with words. Thoughts, feelings, desires, and experiences find form in the marks on my page.

I work quickly and gesturally, blurring the lines between painting and drawing, with thin washes of oil paint and elongated brushes, allowing for an intuitive sense of expression.

I am interested in the intricacies of the everyday. The immeasurable weight of normality and the vast networks of human lives. A spider’s-web of decisions made, paths crossed, stories, experiences, and heart strings, all tangled into one. Working from imagination and memory, the landscapes in these pieces are inspired by the surrounding lands of Dundee and Glasgow, where the skies are open and there is space to reflect.

These paintings are the physical manifestation of the space between time. The lingering bridge from moment to moment. Feeling to feeling. It’s an experience that never happened, and yet, it is the encapsulation of every feeling that has come and passed. It’s the soft edges of a warm memory slowly becoming spotted with the reality of time marching forward.