Worcester’s Tom Grady Shows The Importance of Light in Art

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Jeffrey Starr, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

Dylan, one of the pieces featured in Grady's 101 Portraits exhibition.

Worcester's Tom Grady is one of the more prolific artists you'll ever discover on the art gallery circuit. His most recent exhibit, shown last October at the Sprinkler Factory Gallery in Worcester, exemplifies this in breathtaking fashion. Entitled 101 Portraits: A Lifetime at a Glance, the show consisted of 101 oil portraits on canvas each 18x18" of different people ranging in age from newborn to 100. They were completed in an 18 month span.

The unique show impressed the public. He's been taking on many portrait commissions since, which, he admits, was one of the reasons for having the show.

Let There Be Light

Of course, facial portraits are only one of many different subjects he tackles routinely. These subjects could include various full-body portraits and simple portraits of everyday life, dreamscapes, natural landscapes, and there is even an atomic blast. But no matter what subject he chooses, one element remains most important in all his paintings, and that is light.

"In my work light is everything. It can fall across the most ordinary object or place turning it into something extraordinary. Realism is important in showing the dualism of medium and image, material and illusion," remarks the artist.

Ingrid's Dream, pen and ink on paper, 16x16" by Tom Grady.

It seems a simple point, that light is truly everything. After all, without it, the entire world, let alone art itself, would be invisible, impossible to comprehend. But, though the nature of the light we see every day in the "real world" is constant as any scientist would tell you, the trick of the artist, especially one like Grady, is to subtly manipulate it in a way that catches the viewer's eye in a new and surprising way, combining, in other words, the real and the illusory in one. In this way a painter is like a magician.

"For me painting is like magic, both eternal and temporal, exerting its contemplative force upon the viewer," says the artist.

The primary mediums he uses to perform this trick are oil, charcoal and ink.

An Artistic Life

In addition to his own work as an artist, Grady is also a teacher. He is currently a visiting professor at Assumption College where he teaches drawing and painting, and he also runs classes at the Worcester Art Museum. It seems he wanted to be involved in art from birth. His own education consisted of Auburn High School, the Rhode Island School of Art and Design, and the Art Institute of Boston.

"I hope people enjoy looking at my art work. I enjoy making it. In a lot of ways I am still doing what I was doing as a child," he says.

In addition to his exhibition in the Sprinkler Factory he has shown at numerous additional locations in and around Worcester, Boston, and Providence, and even as far as Rome.

Grady has another exhibit coming up this October at the Foster Gallery in Worcester.

"Showing will be many of my pen and ink drawings that spin dream imagery into several narratives and include influences from the Higgins Armory collection (which I am incredibly sad to see closing)," he says, explaining this new exhibit.

If you're curious and wish to inquire further about his work, this show will certainly be a good start.

For more information on Tom Grady and to view some of his work please visit his website.