Born in London, Canada, in 1956, Tom Hilborn attended Beal Art School where he studied watercolour and drawing with Herb Ariss and Burt Kloezman. It was Kloezman who suggested to Tom that a creative potential can be generated through the drawing exercise.
Taking that idea to heart, Tom applied it to the creation of his paintings of early Renaissance figures which he juxtaposes against figures from the early American Rock ‘n Roll movement. His use of the Madonnas in many of his paintings is not for religious reasons but rather to attract the viewer of his work into the work by presenting something familiar to its audience.
Tom also applies this idea to the music he plays in performance with a band called “The Black Holes”. “The Black Holes” began playing in underground clubs in the mid 1990s. His band’s musical practice is based on Rockabilly and early Jazz hot music of the 1920s, the music of Fletcher Henderson, Thomas Fats Waller, James P. Johnson and Louis Armstrong.
Tom uses a variety of media in a single work, painting with acrylics on masonite as canvas and building up texture with molding paste and grit for a three dimensional effect.
“Saints and Hards” is the title of an art exhibit put together when Tom’s art was displayed at the D.B. Weldon library at the University of Western Ontario.
A “hard”, by the way, is a word Tom recalls from his childhood used to describe tough guys.
