Tom Burckhardt's whimsical and wistful work has been the subject of many reviews and articles.


Writing in the New York Times, critic Ken Johnson commented about Tom Burckhardt’s 2002 work: “Tom Burckhardt makes busy, engagingly playful paintings in which all sorts of forms – realistic representations, abstract passages, patterns lifted from Eastern traditions and much more – are crammed into layered, interlocking Cubist compositions. The most interesting are narrow verticals in which various objects – power tools, biomorphic shapes, snaking tubes, striped vases – are arranged into absurd stacks like postmodern totem poles.”
(“If you could draw a line from the center of landscape, figurative painting, self-portraiture and abstraction– somehow you’d end up with my work” says Burckhardt) (Kimberly Goad - Art and Antiques Feb. 2001)

His most recent work has taken on a new dimension – literally.
Again, Ken Johnson: “Known until now for eclectically layered abstract paintings, Tom Burckhardt has produced a big surprise for his current exhibition: a walk-in cartoon of an artist’s studio made of tan corrugated cardboard and black paint. The construction calls to mind Red Grooms’s animated environments, but Mr. Burckhardt’s humor is quieter and mysteriously somber. Much of the entertainment value is in the transformation of objects into all kinds of cardboard forms, with details added by brush and black paint … It is as if a Midas- like character with a cardboard touch had paid a visit. The installation is also a nostalgic comment on the mystique of the modern artist’s studio. (N.Y. Times 9/16/05) (This exhibition “Full Stop” will be seen from March 26 - October 30 at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT.)
 

Tread, 2001, enamel on wood, 48 x 36 inches, Courtesy of the Artist and Caren Golden Fine Art, New York

Mr. Burckhardt has a B.F.A. from the State University of New York at Purchase. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Art Forum, Art and Antiques and Art News. He is the recipient of two Pollock–Krasner Foundation Grants, the George Hitchcock Award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters and a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is the son of well-known artists Rudy Burckhardt and Yvonne Jacquette, both of whom have been visiting artists at Western Connecticut.

More of Tom's work can be seen at Tom Burckhardt