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Inspired by the machinist’s craft and the volumetric simplicity of the Bauhaus, Tom Bandage attempts to capture the shape of thought through geometric contortions of material. Tom describes his sculpture work as conceptual - not in the sense that there is a concept to be gained or instructed, but rather that the work itself represents the epistemic structure of Concept.

Fueled by the writings of Foucault and Deleuze & Guatarri, his geometries focus on the interaction between form and semiotic reference. In playing with form directly and intentionally avoiding reference to a signifier, his work creates novel viewing experiences that draw forth curiosity through a meditative play on perspective, giving the viewer complete control over what is to be signified.

Fascinated by materiality and its immediate effect on the comprehension of space, Tom leverages high-standard design practice and material selection to conjure the emotionality and weight of industrialism, removing traditional construction materials such as concrete, metal, and acrylic, from their urban contexts and applying them to abstract conceptions of form and space. In doing so, he provides an experience of levity, intention, and process.

His focus on process lends itself to creating internally-consistent structures that become self-referential and are intended to represent the interaction between thought patterns and the means by which knowledge is produced. Often leveraging the mathematic concepts of graph theory, automata, and voronoi diagrams, he attempts to capture systems that produce their own internal logic, acting as physical metaphor.

Tom self-imposes creative restrictions by utilizing analog architectural drafting processes and inherent limitations of the desired material. This allows him to achieve a Warholian factory- like effect, where individual pieces are hand selected from a wide range of iterations, without a focus on producing the “right answer” or arriving at the final destination.

His cited inspirations include Alexander Calder, Le Corbusier, Dieter Rams, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Cage, Egon Schiele, and spaghetti westerns