#tompope

Think of oranges, performance, photography, and you would most definitely think of Tom Pope’s latest exhibition “So it Goes”. I had the fantastic opportunity to meet the recent RCA MA Photography Graduate and Deutsche Bank 2011 Artist Award winner, during his recent exhibition held at the George and Jorgen Gallery. 

As I shook hands with the scruffy haired Sid Vicious looking Tom, who wore a prim royal blue jacket and a nervous smile, he shared how this recent solo exhibition very much developed from the debut of his award winning work Time Bound. After winning the Deutsche Bank Artist Award, “So it Goes” gathers work that captures a performance within a photograph; a play with ideas and limitations revolving around time. As to which, he describes his work as inklings of “orchestrated moments” that bear hints of “weak anarchy”. 

The exhibition is segmented into 5 different areas, the two main areas housed in Room 1 and Room 3. Entering Room 1, you are immediately drawn to a small vintage television screen that plays my personal favorite video, ‘Scrumping in Monaco’. In the video, Tom ironically picks oranges from a tree in Monaco, one of the richest countries in the world, then later gets told by a passerby that the oranges are disgusting, he lightly brushes off the comment and continues to bag the fallen oranges off the floor as the lady exits the scene. 

Apart from subtle anarchic messages of rebellion and oppression, ‘Scrumping in Monaco’ clearly exhibits the mischievous boldness and playfulness of Tom’s personality as an Artist, an ineluctable theme that seeps into most of his work (funny enough, he later tells me separately, how he attempted to eat the oranges and realizes how frightfully horrid they were). His remarkable playfulness can especially be seen in his most challenging and personal favorite piece entitled ‘Another Splash’, found framed orange in Room 3. Here, Tom puts to test the constraints of time as he climbs over the fence throwing one of his collected oranges into a private swimming pool. Referencing the concept behind the piece to David Hockney’s, 1967 - ‘A Bigger Splash’, Tom also shows how he can successfully create and recreate a humorous balance between the art of appropriation and authorship within his work.

Overhearing the crowds impressions from the exhibition, many let out whispers of delight and admiration for his youthful boisterous courage, while a few others questioned the nature of his video work being totally spontaneous and unplanned. Whatever the case, I believe that Tom has a long and fulfilling journey ahead of him and as a viewer, I would definitely say that a great deal of beauty within his work lies in the understanding of the meaning and stories behind each and every piece - singularly and together as a whole unit. As a first timer solo exhibitor himself, Tom has indeed managed to pull together a succinct body of work that presents the viewer with witty amusement. 

View Trailer on the Exhibition at:

HTTPS://VIMEO.COM/47960686

For more on Tom Pope, Visit his website:

HTTP://WWW.TOMPOPE.CO.UK/

Also the Press Statement for the current event is available at: