In the Studio: with Tom Holt
By Chris Stucchio; Photo by Jim Bush
Tom Holt may be one of the few American artists who frankly admits that Disney is his chief inspiration. A preparator at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, the twenty-four year old Buffalo resident and artist says that a family vacation to the happiest place on earth when he was six years old triggered his creative spirit. While on a catwalk during a studio tour he observed a Disney cartoonist flipping between images that made it appear to him as if one of Mickey Mouse’s arms was moving. He’s been hooked on art ever since. (Holt does have some issues with Disney today. But that’s a story for another time.)
Holt’s eclectic and diverse body of work includes simplified, conceptual cartoon-style paintings or drawings that may have recurring subjects such as Pac-Man characters eating ghosts, a business man dressed in black and white that represents him doing the “nine-to-five work thing,” as he says, or an original interpretation of Nintendo’s Mega Man character in his “iconic blast position.” Regarding the latter, Holt calls him a “more action-packed alter ego of myself.”
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Rather than writing in a journal or diary, Holt is constantly filling sketchbooks with pictures that capture his feelings or the noteworthy events of a day. For someone who says, “I’m obsessed with composition, and I love filling in a page and finding the right balance,” the sketchbooks have proven to be an ideal outlet. Because of his concern about permanent damage to the pages, they’ve only been viewed in a public setting once. That may change should he display his work at one or more individual or group shows during the year.
Entering his studio (which doubles as a bedroom) you’ll find a variety of colorful paintings; spontaneous, energetic, graffiti-like art on his walls; and perhaps even a stale package of potato chips under a pile of clothes. Clearly Holt is someone who must communicate with the world through the language he obviously knows best: art. After his memorable visit to Disney, you could even say the writing has been on the wall for quite some time.
Chris Stucchio, a freelance writer, lives in Buffalo.
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