THOMAS HANCHETT
My own art is a challenge for me that is constantly evolving as I evolve, pushing me beyond my perceived capabilities and away from my expanding comfort zone.
My body of work consists of individual stories and non-representational imagery. While I believe that conveying a narrative is important, sometimes I am more focused on exploring new ways of capturing the visual essence of the people, places, and things that I see every day and finding the best possible way to recreate it.
Though much of my work is done with a computer, a lot of my inspiration comes from 18th and 19th-century oil painters like Albert Bierstadt, Herbert James Draper, Joseph Wright of Derby, Gustave Courbet, and many others. I would not consider my work to be a modernized representation of the work of these painters, but I incorporate many of the aesthetic elements and realist themes from this work that I find visually appealing.
I am also influenced by postmodern artists like Sam Spratt, Marta Nael, and Kim Jung Gi. Through research and observation of classicist, realist, and postmodern paintings I am constantly learning and relearning new techniques. I find it both challenging and exciting that the more knowledge I gain, the less I seem to know overall.
I have always enjoyed working with ink, charcoal, graphite, and acrylic paints, but my work has drastically changed after my discovery of digital media. Now I am constantly finding new ways to implement this form of media into my work.
By using illustration software, such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter, I am able to achieve certain effects and visuals that are difficult to emulate on paper and canvas. For instance, I sometimes use collage techniques to integrate digital sculpture and photographic textures into my landscape pieces which require a high level of intricacy and detail. For these pieces, I import files from 3D modeling programs into Photoshop. This helps to speed up my process because I am able to get my ideas out much more quickly when I am not completely rendering from scratch on paper.
I often use scanned traditional materials such as pencil marks, brush strokes, canvas textures, and ink splashes, to give my work a more traditional quality.
Since going digital, I've primarily used Wacom graphics tablets (Intuos Pro and Cintiq 13”) for all of my work. The mobility and efficiency of a tablet put me at a great advantage over many traditional artists, as I am no longer confined to a studio or an office.
