The Creative Moment in Pastel and Oil: Paintings by Tom Brand

EXHIBIT

Friday, July 11th – Sunday, August 3rd

Opening Reception:

Friday, July 11th | 5PM – 7PM

Tom Brand is an abstract artist who paints with oil on panel. He begins by applying a traditional method of glazes to an initial spontaneous sketch, arriving at a composition made up of forms and colors in dynamic interaction. This finished work often evokes an abstract landscape or visual event that should seem familiar. It is intended to engage the viewer and give them a “handle” to use their imagination. Ultimately, it invites the viewer to look and interpret the paintings in their own way.

About the Artist:

Tom Brand has been a part of the arts community for more than 50 years. Born and raised in Indianapolis, Brand came to Chicago (after service in the U.S. Navy) to study art and painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In the years following, he married and provided for his family by working as a journeyman printer, a trade he had first learned in his father’s business in Indianapolis. As president of his own printing company in Chicago, he produced posters and comic books for the Hairy Who as well as catalogues for other Chicago artists. He curated exhibitions for the Beacon Street Hull House Art Center in Chicago and showed in community exhibitions. As an arts activist in Chicago, he was one of the founding members of the Chicago Artists’ Coalition in 1974, an organization that still exists today.

Brand moved to Northern Indiana in 1996. He was chairman of the Area Artists Association. He was also the secretary to the board and the chairman of the Collections Committee. Brand, as a prolific painter, exhibits often and his works have won awards and are in many private collections.