Wednesday Visitor - Tom Railton

Tom Railton



Inspired by Brian Aldiss' book covers, Railton explained how he loved the colour schemes, the fades and the  overall atmosphere the covers give. Wanting the same appeal, Railton experimented with using social media to recreate the same fades, but using different colours to get across emotions. Cold blues representing sadness or depression. Relating to this, I have used social media as a subject for my own work and how it effects teenagers image and daily lives of being fixated within it. Railton used an analogy that I believe truly describes it, "Phones are similar to slot machines", this illustrates the serious problem of addiction to technology.

In response he created these sculptures made from obsidian they show the contrast of technology from the stone ages. The one half being chiselled and chipped to show the raw material and how cavemen used it the car and create the backbones of history, to the other side of it being perfectly moulded and beautifully smooth to resemble a modern day phone. This is a very strong message of how our hands are no longer needed for producing and survival, but only for leisure and the constant need to be occupied by technology. 

Using old master's painting, Railton created a series of works based off the themes included in such painters work as Hogarth. The common theme of the seas and skies interested him, turning it into a more three dimensional concept Railton created a ship mast and a sculpture made from fishing nets. However, he felt he could develop it further by creating his own nets, which tied the craftsmanship and the piece together. Still unsatisfied with the results he moved the piece around into new locations, looking at it with fresh eyes meant he could  make new amendments and completed the piece. This was the exact same situation I was in when doing the Cross Year crit when we experimented with moving my work around and separating them to give it a new appearance, it made my work look very different and more professional, rather than just an experiment.
This was an example of how he feels embarrassed to show failures or mistakes, which I relate to because I sometimes just throw away my failures or cover them up, but I have now realised that it just shows the process and steps to how I finalize a project.