Artist CV
About
Studied: University of Illinois, MFA
Currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Tom Lieber’s recognizable, calligraphic mark-making continues to be a focus in his paintings. The grace and shape of his bold lines appear over subtle neutral backgrounds with pockets of dense color and movement. Lieber’s new, large canvases, thick with paint, can evoke a reference to Joan Mitchell in the foreground mark-making, at the same time the nuanced color variation in the backgrounds leave a suggestion of Mark Rothko. While these visual influences are present, the work and the energy that it emits can be no other than Tom Lieber. Often a single brushstroke or gesture anchors the painting, allowing the underlying color fields and tonal variations to recede and advance across the ground.
Lieber’s work reflects his efforts to channel his interior life onto the canvas. The artist’s live/work environments often influence his works to an autobiographical degree despite the non-representational quality of his work. Informed by nature and meditations, Lieber believes that the body can be better equipped for inventing than the mind, treating the act of painting as a full body experience.
Lieber’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as well as the Tate Gallery in London amongst many others. Tom Lieber is a recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts Grant.