About

Short Bio

Thomas McCue is an artist making contemporary abstract expressionist images using traditional mediums. His images reference and are influenced by myth, manga, and science fiction. He is also a vision impaired artist, considered "legally blind", working with low vision.

Statement

Influenced by a life-long interest in both the natural world and the imaginary worlds of fantasy, science fiction, and comics, Thomas McCue is a painter of unique perspective and execution. The image making synthesizes and abstracts the collision of biological forms both at the micro and macro level. There is interest and emphasis on both form and process, with the metabolism and reproduction at the cellular level being of particular interest. Woven throughout is the influence of both the stories and the images from mythology and folk tales from around the world and throughout history as well as more recent stories and illustration of Jack Kirby, Jean Giraud AKA Möbius, Mike Mignola, Katsuhiro Otomo and many others. The goal is to create new stories and narratives entirely through image, with no direct or intentional through line to an origin point.  As a vision impaired artist, he is also caught in tension between his artistic vision and the unique constraints of his eyesight. Compelled to detail and precision, but confounded to imperfection, the results are a mix of gestural suggestion, accident, and intent.

Biography

Thomas is a vision impaired artist who has been working under the condition of LHON, a hereditary neurological condition that has affected him since 2000. It changed his vision from 20/20 to legally blind. He trained formally as an artist prior to that life-changing event, but the loss of eyesight affected his method of working, but not the vision for his artwork. He has a BFA from Auburn University and a Master’s in Design from Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology. In addition to his art-making, he has worked as a User Experience researcher and designer for over fifteen years.