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Tom Richardson | Rehearsal for a Synthetic Theatre

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Tom Richardson
Tom Richardson
http://www.field-contemporary.com/tom-richardson.html

Part of the 2017 Capture Photography Festival.

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FIELD Contemporary presents Rehearsal for a Synthetic Theatre, a solo exhibition by alumnus Tom Richardson ('15).

Richardson’s practice draws from cinematic and video game narrative conventions to reflect upon current events and the dissemination of violence. In this exhibition a newly made animated film is presented in conjunction with a sculptural apparatus, and a new series of prints. Using state of the art video game technology used for US military applications, Richardson draws from the Synthetic Theatre of War in material and form to create the images and animation presented. Richardson’s film reposes events from T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922), and its subsequent cinematic adaptation Lawrence of Arabia (1962). These texts are a relevant means to highlight the naivety of the Allied Powers failure to heed the advice of T.E. Lawrence (and others) over the Sykes-Picot Agreement. This agreement ruptured promises made to the Arab Revolt (1916-1918) in favour of British and French empirical colonial interest in the region. This can be traced forward as a primary destabilizing force linked to the continued conflicts in the Middle East.

The exhibition is included in the 2017 Capture Photography Festival.

Tom Richardson (b. 1990, Hastings UK) is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Vancouver, he holds a BFA from Emily Carr University where he received the 2015 President’s Media Award for best installation. Richardson’s cinematically infused works seek to reframe historical events for a contemporary context through drawing lines of research both from historical accounts and narrative fictions. Centred around animation, Richardson’s practice expands to include sculpture, installation and 2D works. Richardson is a founding member of Duplex, a DIY art space that hosts a gallery and studios on Fraser Street in Vancouver.

Recent exhibitions include Peer Pressure, Plaza Projects, Richmond (2017), Game/Video Art, Milan Triennale, Italy (2016), The Bureau of True Vision, Spare Room, Vancouver (2016), I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone, Flux Gallery, Aceartinc., Winnipeg (2015), and Break the Legs of What I Want to Happen, Access Gallery, Vancouver (2014). Richardson has also exhibited and performed throughout Europe and North America under the moniker “Tommy Chain”. Tragically, Tommy Chain was lost during a rare Canadian sandstorm en-route to exhibit in Winnipeg in August of 2015 and hasn’t been seen since.