Tom Cardew

b. 1988, Bridgend, Wales
Lives and works in Brecon, Wales

I Forget Why I Live To Remember​ 2019 ​ Photography, Multi-channel Moving Image & Text, Tension Fine Art
I Forget Why I Live To Remember​ 2019 ​ Photography, Multi-channel Moving Image & Text, Tension Fine Art

Tom’s practice processes and explores tacit societal structures of competitive and comparative worth and the ambition for success that underpins meritocratic society.


Taking reference from writers such as Mark Fisher, his work considers the absurd, eerie and weird inherent within neo-liberal capitalism & how one’s life beyond work, within this model, is individualised & atomised in the form of self improvement or other compensatory acts.

He works in storytelling in the form of scripts, film and performance, sometimes mediating narratives of self and inner worlds through digital technologies, from multiscreen installations, to animation and sound. Recent works include a multiscreen installation of forlorn, singing office workers, an award winning comedy video for Nowness and a series of photographic images and stop-motion videos from a hitchhiking trip exploring the idea of truth inherent within image-based documentation.

Tom studied an MA Fine Art at Central St Martins (2018), is a recipient of Arts Council Wales Research & Development and Production Awards (2018/9), and was co-commissioned by Nowness, LVMH & CSM to write, perform and direct a short film, Art to Artillery, which won the Golden Aesop Grand Prix in Contemporary Art at the 24th Biennial of Humour and Satire in Art (2019). He has presented solo exhibitions at g39 & Tension Fine Art (2019) and participated in group shows including: Centre de la Gravure, La Louviere, Belgium; Tate Exchange, Tate Modern, & Blackstone Gallery, Chengdu, China.

The artist was in the following exhibitions:
Love Hangover
g39 Fellowship THREE
Soft split the Stone

Links :
www.tomcardew.co.uk
  • Tom Cardew, <i>Love Hangover 2019, ​ Multi-channel Installation g39</i>
  • Tom Cardew, <i>Folly</i>, Mixed Media, 2018
  • Tom Cardew, <i>Present Future</i>, Tate exchange & Copenhagen School, 2017
  • Dimensions of Publicness, 24th Biennial of Humour and Satire in Art  2019 ​ Awarded: Golden Aesop Grand Prix  w/ Katarina Rankovic,  Museum of Satire & Humour in Art, Gabrovo Bulgaria
  • Tom Cardew and Katarina Rankovic, Art To Artillery, 2017
  • I Forget Why I Live To Remember​ 2019 ​ Photography, Multi-channel Moving Image & Text, Tension Fine Art