Just a Crack: Q+A with Tom Armstrong

Elusive, introspective, and quietly prolific, Tom Armstrong is an artist who prefers paint to prose. His work is playful, naïve, and at times absurd, moving confidently between childlike spontaneity and considered restraint. Bold in colour, figure, and voice, these paintings don’t whisper; they speak plainly, if obliquely, to those willing to look closely.

Now working exclusively in Auckland with The Frame Gallery, Tom remains a figure largely untouched by spectacle. He rarely offers much about himself, and perhaps that’s the point. His paintings do the talking. In this brief and revealing exchange, we gently pry open the door to Tom’s world...just a crack.

You’ve described your practice with the line “I paint what I see.” What is it that catches your eye?

"I paint what I see, said the blind man," is really meant as something of an absurdity.

We see through the process of painting with our imagination, our intellect, and also with our limitations.

It refers to a quote from Picasso: "Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen."

You've been painting for years, yet your presence in the public art world feels relatively low-key. Was this intentional, and if so, why?

I guess you could say there are two aspects: painting (i.e. doing the work), and then the means of how the work is seen. My focus has mostly been concerned with the painting.

The making of the stuff.

You’re currently showing work in the Manawatū Now! exhibition. What drew you to being part of this project?

I have been lucky to have supporters in my corner who have helped to get my work out there. The Manawatū Now! exhibition, which is currently on at Te Manawa in Palmerston North, runs until the end of August for those interested.

I remember being told many years ago that all you can really do is work hard and hope that luck is on your side when it counts.

Your paintings depict themselves to be playful and naïve. Is there a philosophy that guides your approach?

One has no control over how others view what one does. We have a long history of painting to contend with. We have our own experience and times. We make decisions, sometimes conscious, sometimes not. Painting, I think, comes from an empirical position; like a cloud of vapour, it condenses into something.

As far as a philosophical position goes, all we can do, I think, is work on what interests us in a way that is as real as one can make it.

There’s a bigger showcase on the horizon. What can we expect—or should we not expect anything at all?

I'm grateful that The Frame Gallery has invited me to exhibit in July.