Tom Polo Paris Drawings: The Most Elaborate Disguise
Perimeter Editions in partnership with STATION, Melbourne
‘Paris Drawings: The Most Elaborate Disguise’ reveals Tom Polo’s distinct, and somewhat peculiar approach to drawing, painting and the portrait. This ‘non-digital face-book’ collates 48 portraits of imagined-sitters created while on residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, in 2016. Frayed brushstrokes create rough enclosures to geometric form while an undefined, soft palette of subtracted colours (muddy greens and browns, and dull ochres) build personality and character. An underlying threat of camouflage is present as the figurative is filtered by the abstract, reflecting the emotional masks we adopt as part of our public personas – ‘people are never quite what they seem and always what they are becoming,’ writes curator Justin Paton in the accompanying essay to this illustrative catalogue.
