Tom Isaacs is a contemporary artist and curator working primarily in the fields of performance and textile art. His practice draws from psychoanalytic theory, philosophy, religious and ritual practices, and art history to explore themes of mental illness, mortality, and the human condition. He is currently a PhD candidate at Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University, researching the relationship between ritual, psychoanalysis and body art, and how these different streams of thought address the problem of alienation. Recent exhibitions include: 'SEWNUP' at Lyttleton Stores curated by Fiona Davies in 2020; 'BLUE' at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre curated by Beata Geyer in 2020; and BLUE TOO at WAYOUT curated by Beata Geyer in 2021.
With the exhibition of Reverse Alchemy and Tehom [the Deep] in ‘Inaugural’ at Ellipsis Gallery, I’ve been thinking about making some more small quilts using the same tessellating cross pattern. Up till now I’ve been making crosses by cutting fabric into three inch squares with my rotary cutter and then using scissors to cut a … More A Formula for Quilting
My PhD examination exhibition ‘Sacrificial Bodies’ is done and dusted and I am proud to say that I passed my oral exam. Pending a few minor amendments to my thesis I will soon be Dr Isaacs (the sixth living Dr Isaacs in my family, but the first non-medical Doctor Isaacs). Thanks so much to everyone … More Exciting Developments!
Disappearance, suffocation, collapse, and death. These are the sufferings of the alienated and depressed body. Or are they, perhaps, the means by which suffering can be overcome? Deprivation and self-harm are time-honoured tools used in spiritual disciplines from around the world and throughout history. They are also recurring motifs in the field of body art. … More PhD Exhibition: Sacrificial Bodies
This is the fourth post in a series documenting the creation of my new work Emergency Blankets for the MAPBM event ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ (curated by Dr Fiona Davies) as part of Cementa22. ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ is supported by Festivals Australia and NAB and Emergency Blankets is additionally supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW. In the first post I shared the process … More Emergency Blankets: Work-In-Progress Part 4
This is the third post in a series documenting the creation of my new work Emergency Blankets for the MAPBM event ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ (curated by Dr Fiona Davies) as part of Cementa22. ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ is supported by Festivals Australia and NAB and Emergency Blankets is additionally supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW. In the first post I shared the process … More Emergency Blankets: Work-In-Progress Part 3
This is the second post in a series documenting the creation of my new work Emergency Blankets for the MAPBM event ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ (curated by Dr Fiona Davies) as part of Cementa22. ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ is supported by Festivals Australia and NAB and Emergency Blankets is additionally supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW. In this … More Emergency Blankets: Work-In-Progress Part 2
I am very proud to announce that I have been selected to participate in the MAPBM event ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ (curated by Dr Fiona Davies) as part of Cementa22. ‘Carnivale Catastrophe’ is supported by Festivals Australia and NAB. As part of my participation I will be producing a new work titled Emergency Blankets which is supported … More Emergency Blankets: Work-In-Progress Part 1
For the past few months I have had the distinct pleasure of being a participating artist mentor as part of the School Contemporary Arts Mentoring Program (SCAMP), coordinated by Merryn Hull PhD and supported by CreateNSW. My fellow artist mentors and I have been meeting regularly (over Zoom) with our student mentees from high schools … More Cessnock Contemporary Catalogue
This Monday 23 August, I will be participating in online artist talks for the postponed per.doc exhibition at Articulate project space, Leichhardt. The press release reads as follows: The Documenting Articulate 2010-2020 Performance show, per.doc, is one of four planned Decade shows where artists revisit work presented at Articulate over the last 10 years. In this instance, we … More per.doc Artist Talks
A few days ago, a friend of mine shared this article on the current exhibition ‘Louise Bourgeois: Freud’s Daughter’ at the Jewish Museum in New York. I’ve admired Bourgeois’s work for some time and I’m particularly interested in the connection between her artistic practice and her personal history (so much so that I wrote about … More Freud’s Daughter and The Destruction of the Father
Tom Isaacs 