Tom Polo: When windows are worlds

ON THE SUBJECT of art, a painting is often described as a window into another world. And while we can easily imagine ourselves inhabiting a landscape painting, or sitting across from a subject in a portrait, can the same be said for abstract painting? In a strict sense, the term describes art that has separated or withdrawn a presence from something — making use of shape, colour, and gesture to represent an object or setting other than what we can directly see. So then, does abstraction offer a window into an interior world, a warped sense of the outside world, or perhaps something altogether different?

These are some of the questions Sydney-based painter Tom Polo explores in his practice. Having originally studied Psychology and Sociology alongside his Fine Arts degree, Polo has long been interested in understanding the enigma of human imagination. For more than 10 years, this artist has been unpacking the methods of human communication through painting, with particular interest in how personas, masks, speech and body language facilitate relationships.

Italians often speak of sprezzatura, a studied nonchalance that makes it seem that one’s actions are done without effort and without almost any thought. And while his work may initially suggest this spirit, Polo as an artist and personality is much more complex. With a self-deprecating charm, he reveals that his paintings often begin in the form of fragmented recollections, overheard snatches of conversation, or small scraps of words float- ing through windows on a hazy summer day. He draws from these everyday fragments, intuitively stitching them together to form the narratives of his paintings.

However, Polo is never obvious or direct in his approach. His compositions are highly suggestive, asking the viewer to suppose, dream and imagine the possibilities within his painted scenes. In this way, Polo’s practice is highly respectful of the viewers’ capacity to contribute and, in a way, coproduce a work of art by deducing a personal understanding.

At Melbourne gallery STATION’s 2018 pop-up exhibition in Woollhara, Polo created a series of large canvases, propped up by theatre backings like those found on stages. He describes each work as forming a chapter within a larger narrative, leading the viewer through a maze of meaning. A kneeling figure, reminiscent of a dog tends to a well-heeled foot suspended in mid-air in ornamental ears. A carnivalesque figure, complete with a muddy matcha-moss coloured bouffant, attempts to climb over a mound. Within these canvases, colours, texture and allusion swirl together, delighting the eye and stirring the spirit. The push and pull of colour and the interplay between light and dark of these compositions sit halfway between deadpan and eloquence.