ARTIST SPOTLIGHT // TOM CHAMBERS
The Art of Exploration
Burrowing, sailing, and soaring in imaginary landscapes
by Heather Shayne Blakeslee
EXCERPT //
Chambers says his grandfather wasn’t the only one in the house with talent, but times being what they were, his grandmother’s paintings were overshadowed. “She’s better than my grandfather, I think, with color,” he says. “But my grandfather was the man of the house. … She didn’t do his huge landscape oils. She did watercolors, mostly. Still lives, flowers. But when she did do landscapes, they were pretty great. I think he held her back.”
Art and nature have always been entwined for Chambers, but he wants to celebrate the talent he saw in his grandmother, and the strength he saw in his own daughter growing up. In his photomontages, bold and curious young girls explore moody landscapes—and no one is holding them back. “She kind of grew up as I was developing my photography direction,” says Chambers of his daughter, now 33. He says he could see both her tenacity, as well a different connection to nature than he and his rowdy brothers embodied.
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