Thom Mahin

Los Osos, CA
e-mail: thommahinart@earthlink.net

Originally from Chicago, IL
Awarded Master of Fine Arts degree while teaching art in NYC in the 60s and early 70s.
During this period, I had several shows in Manhattan galleries.

While Warhol was quickly becoming the center of the art world, I was one of the group called, by
the critics, Whats Next.

My work, at that time, was executed in oils on canvas and largely impressionistic with a dose of surrealism.

Moved to CA in the mid-70s and began traveling to Southeast Asia. My time from the mid-70s to the late-80s was divided between the U.S. and Taiwan, China, Malaysia and Thailand.
Lived, virtually full-time, in China and Malaysia for almost 20 years thereafter.

Became intrigued, early on, with the Ming Dynasty scroll paintings, which taught me that Art is more than form and color. Each scroll is also a poem, like the writings of Lao Tzu - which had a major impact on my work.

Lao Tzu wrote that man is tied to the earth, earth to the skies, and the skies to the universe...and the universe is the home of the Tao (The Way).
There is a unique life in everything that surrounds us: a tree is a living organism and the life force in that tree does not end when the tree is felled.

Western art reproduces and/or expresses the surface appearance, from which came Impressionism. Eastern art is part of a greater discipline: understanding the relationship between an object and its environment, that a piece of artwork is exactly that: a piece of a greater whole.
As a result of time spent in Southeast Asia, as well as having become a student of Eastern philosophy, I now build each object in my work from the inside to the outside.

If I were to give a label to my work, it would be: allegorical impressionism.

Paintings in numerous collections: east coast and west coast.