Thomas Skomski: Rooms with Views Chicago Cultural Center July 19-September 14 2003

Chicago area sculptor Tom Skomski creates sculptures and installations that challenge us to reexamine our world and the very perceptions on which we base our fundamental assumptions. His installations create subtle yet theatrical presentations of perceptual phenomena that demonstrate the relativity of our senses and our world. Skomski’s creative process is inspired by materials, and he uses a wide range of found and fabricated objects to set in motion complex puzzles of metaphor and poetic disjunction. His work is also characterized by a sparce formal quality reflecting his interest in Eastern religions and dedication to well-crafted constructions.

Skomski’s two installations were conceived as a site-specific pairing, and thus share certain formal similarities, most noticeably the shapes of the architectural spaces created. They may also be seen as complimentary. While both spaces are essentially confining, Self-Sufficient creates an expanding universe of self-reflections, space and light that opens up the claustrophobic area one is in, while Buzzard Luck creates an imposingly dark experience, enhanced by the menacing glass mirror and the accompanying text about the parallel confinement evident in the experience of drowning.

Although Skomski sets up complex webs of meaning within these installations, he intends these creations to be experiential, and for the participants to inquire deeply into questions of their perceptions, notions of self and the world around them. He creates a world akin to dreams where rational explanation is less important than multidimensional feeling.

Peter Bacon Hales, A Professor in the Art History Department at The University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote this essay in response to Skomski's Rooms With Views Installation.