Tom Potocki

Tom Potocki is a professional artist living in Charleston, South Carolina, who has exhibited extensively in national and regional shows.  He earned a BFA degree from Carnegie Mellon University.  While a student at CMU, he spent a summer studying in Rome and also did design work for Westinghouse, Mellon Bank and US Steel.

After graduating, Tom moved to New York City and was involved with the Pop Art movement and produced the first “Happening” at Fire Island off Long Island, and spent a year in Greece with a studio on the Island of Hydra.

Returning to the US, Tom earned a Master’s degree from Edinboro State University, and began a college teaching career, while continuing to explore and develop his own vision through drawing, painting, sculpture and photography.  His eclectic style has been described as having the look of refined graffiti – a style that grew out of a combination of his neoclassical training and involvement with the Abstract and Pop Art movements of his time.

My art is a visual and emotional response to what I see and experience around me. I’m interested in discovering and tapping into the energy that lies beneath the surface of what we think we see. The images that develop in my work are derived from a process of applying splashes and layers of color to a surface and letting go of the notion that I have to control every detail.

I let the painting take on a life and direction of its own, and tell me where it’s going. Each work becomes an exercise in creativity because, as an image emerges, it evolves into a balance between what the paint wants to do and what I want it to do. The finished piece should entice and challenge the viewer to look beneath the surface of what we think we see around us and discover something new. This gives the viewer the opportunity to become part of the creative process.