You Brought Something Into the World that Does Not Belong Here

Opening of an MFA Thesis Exhibition by Tomáš Penc, MFA SDS Candidate 2023. Open Gallery hours during thesis season are Sunday 1-3 pm, Monday & Tuesday 11-4 pm. Tomáš will offer a gallery talk on April 11 at 5pm in the gallery and online. Register for the online gallery talk.

I consider myself an observer who collects and reflects on absurdities of the individual human condition. I was born and raised in former Czechoslovakia. Having had the experience of living in a totalitarian regime, I see aspects of its grip resurfacing again in the present world, but on a global scale. The apprehension of the possible things to come reflects in my artwork as it addresses deeper political and existential topics, ridiculous scientific advances, irrational situations, logical inconsistencies and paradoxes of our memory. Most of the time I use humor as a strategy to highlight the Absurd.

My art work draws from a variety of materials from plastics, artificial and natural substances, found objects to electronics and other technology, such as 3D printing and computer graphics. These material choices help me illustrate how intellectually complicated we have become on one hand, yet remain driven by irrational urges and subconscious impulses.

The approach to my work is open-ended and idea driven, resulting in a free-forming collection of artifacts from an alternative world, a subjective perception of a distorted reality, which serves to remind us to take ourselves - from the overall point of existence - way less seriously.