The approach to his work is open-ended, experimental and idea driven, the resulting artwork is usually project based and often site-specific. The long-term aim of his research is to include the audience in the so called “participation mystique”, integrating kinetic sculpture elements, sound and installation.
info@tomaspenc.art
Oh Lard
Pig Eater (something weird to think about)
A futuristic composition of strange encounters in a faraway land filled with displaced and re-imagined rhythms and shapes. Based on a 3D design and fabricated during a summer residency at Glenn Zweygardt Sculpture Studio (www.glennzweygardt.com) in Alfred Station, New York, USA. The sculpture is on view in the Alfred Village Sculpture Park, New York, USA.
Stainless Steel Love
It is only a nightmare while it lasts
And when the machine etches your bones
I will fall for you
Of the things to come
The most terrifying
Is that I fall for you
Be smart, save time
And think of how to save more time
Until the machine crushes your bones
And in the time you save
Instant replay
Of how you saved time
It is not out of you
But it brings the worst out
In Search of Ground
New experimental collaborative work with @ziho_chen titled In Search of Ground.
Zihao Chen’s abstract paintings encoded with topologies of a fictitious faraway land of the "happening" provide terrain and stage for Tomas Penc’s sculptural and spatial play of objects, sounds and situations, ultimately bringing together traditional painting and sculpture with installation into experimental interactive landscape and space of web and electronic arts.
Scan the QR code or open the link https://www.tomaspenc.art/collaboration/examples/intruders3.html and explore the landscape.
Special thanks to the curators @cas_idy & @fkialmostforgot, and the @aspace____ gallery for including our piece along other amazing work in "A Window at A Space" exhibition - from May 1 to May 15, 2024 at A Space, 13 Grattan St, Brooklyn, NY.
Digital Waste Disposal Site
This video work was conceived during a silent retreat residency near the city of Pori on the coast of Finland. In awe of the calm and crispy nature of that winter afternoon, I was suddenly confronted with an intrusive question. What happens to all the websites that nobody has viewed in years, posts that no one ever read and files that never arrived at their intended email addresses?
Presented in “Connect” May 22 – June 16, 2024 Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA), South Korea
“Connect” is an interactive exhibition incorporating QR codes along with artworks in various media including photography, 2D digital art, video art, interactive art, drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installation art. The show is organized to promote communication between featured artists and viewers and enrich our understanding of contemporary art and diversity of cultures.
Memento Mori (after Jeff Koons)
You Brought Something Into The World That Does Not Belong Here
From my MFA 2023 Thesis Exhibition titled You Brought Something Into The World That Does Not Belong Here at Robert C. Turner Gallery, Alfred University, NY, USA. 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 is reflected in this exhibition as it addresses ridiculous scientific advances, irrational situations, logical inconsistencies and paradoxes of our memory.
(Perpetual) Death of Lucretia
From my MFA 2023 Thesis Exhibition titled You Brought Something Into The World That Does Not Belong Here at Robert C. Turner Gallery, Alfred University, NY, USA. 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 is reflected in this exhibition as it addresses ridiculous scientific advances, irrational situations, logical inconsistencies and paradoxes of our memory.
Hedonic Cupids
From my MFA 2023 Thesis Exhibition titled You Brought Something Into The World That Does Not Belong Here at Robert C. Turner Gallery, Alfred University, NY, USA. 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 is reflected in this exhibition as it addresses ridiculous scientific advances, irrational situations, logical inconsistencies and paradoxes of our memory.
Long Way From Home
Exploration of the ambiguity of home as a physical place and home as a state of internal peace, tranquillity and the strive for it. Artwork produced in 2021 during Alfred University MFA degree study in the USA.
Charged with Deception
Individual constituent parts form a desired shape when viewed from a specific vantage point. Artwork produced in 2021 during Alfred University MFA degree study in the USA.
Eye of the Future
Commissioned under the Per Cent for Art Scheme and completed in 2020, the sculpture is located at St. Columba’s Boys’ National School in Douglas, Cork, Ireland.
Using computer 3D software and anamorphism as a perspective distortion, this sculpture is a subtle metaphor on knowledge, rational thinking, power of a human being and St. Columba as the patron of this school. Consisting of five individual standalone shapes and a concrete platform, when not aligned with the vantage point designated in order for the viewer to reconstruct the intended image, the shapes break down into constituent parts forming a visual puzzle.
Cutouts on the largest (green) piece of the sculpture hide a message in Morse code designed to be deciphered by the students.
ENDUSER
An evolving two-part exhibition that took place in Triskel Christchurch in Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, Ireland over the period of three months between October 11 and December 22, 2018. This site-specific installation explored the mind-set we, as users, hold towards science and technology and its revolutionary potential that allows us to contest the boundaries of our collective existence traditionally demarcated by the external concept of God. This trend, however, also entails some dark aspects of how we relate to ourselves, one another, and our environment, all of which was the subject matter of the exhibited artwork.
The exhibition was produced with support or funding from Triskel Arts Centre, Valerie Gleeson Development Bursary, National Sculpture Factory, Cork City Council Arts Office and The Arts Council of Ireland.
(photo credits venividiphoto.net)
Angular Oppressors I/II
Interactive Installation incorporating four sculptural stacks that react and start playing upon detection of motion. Each stack produces different note, together creating harmony. The sound is produced by a custom made speaker assembly replacing traditional speaker cone with an embossed print. The sculptural forms in front of the speakers were cast in the Czech Republic from a special aluminium alloy used for parts in aviation, industrial applications but also armed vehicle weaponry systems.
Four video loops combining analogue photography and 3D animation. This presentation accompanied the course work at the CIT CCAD graduation exhibition 2016 but was not readily on display, referring to the unconscious aspect of the human psyche.
Auri Sacra Fames
A series of limited edition prints loosely based on Franz Mehring's comment on Charles Dickens - the social critic who in his literary works exposed the destitution of the poorest English classes and yet in the last years of his life supposedly suffered from auri sacra fames - the unfortunate hunger for gold.