Among the major influences on the art of Tom Hilborn (Aug 13, 1956 – ) is a concept put forth by Herb Ariss and Bert Kloezman who taught Tom at Beal Art in London, Ontario in the mid 70s.  The idea is that by engaging in extended sessions of drawing exercise, one’s “battery” is thereby charged up.  In other words:  a motivational potential is generated by the amount of drawing done. Also benefiting from a good workout on the drawing board is that part of us that learns to bring more and more factors into a single focus – when drawing one part of say, a human figure, you want to learn to think of the other related parts and the background shapes at the same time. A polarity existing between the Italian High Renaissance and the American Rock ‘n Roll era is the main source of themes in Tom’s art.  This and any related ideas are set down and in various ways abandoned in favor of the feel that emerges. Sam Phillips is a man famous for wearing out that word “feel.”  “It’s the feel!” he repeated over and over to describe what he wanted to capture on recording tape.  This led to a major focus on his record company, Sun Records in Memphis , Tennessee , as a point from where the global escalation of Rock ‘n Roll emerged. About 450 years earlier in Florence, Italy (not to be confused with Florence, Alabama, where Sam is from), the Italian High Renaissance marked the infancy of the western world view, very different from the sense of American world domination that led to the Rock ‘n Roll era. This is what Tom has to say about his art.

Photo of Tom Hilborn by Janet Donnelly.

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.