THOMAS HEMENWAY; BIOGRAPHY “CONNECTING THE DOTS”

Thomas Hemenway was born January 17, 1965 in Burlingame California. At the age of seven it became very apparent to Thomas’s friends and family that no one aesthetic discipline could hold his attention for very long. By this time, Thomas was already starting to compose music, later creating pointillist paintings, tinkering with anything electronic, and painting with leaves and brushes in much the same tradition as the Sumi painters of the East.

Starting In High School he delved into photography, illustration, three-dimensional sculpture & combining poetry with pictures. Everything he does springs from a central inspiration, whether it’s a musical note, his pointillist paintings, his experimentation with mazes or his extraordinary website design. Getting you from one point to another is part of the underlying order that seems to manifest itself in his aesthetic endeavors. Much to his parents’ fascination, Thomas not only composed his own Classical, Rock and Jazz compositions, but he deconstructed the classical musical notation which he proceeded to reinvent for his own archives and repertoire.

At the age of fifteen the next profound influence on Thomas came in the form of his first electronic synthesizers and keyboards. Thomas not only plays the keyboard and other stringed instruments as well as the xylophone, but he sings and has been in several bands and produced their albums. These musical skills helped to liberate and amplify the boundaries of what was possible at that time, and they also gave Thomas perhaps the one tool that would change him from a combination of artist-entrepreneur, to one of the most facile and innovative artists of this new century: the computer.

With his electronic music and newly found passion for computer generated art, Thomas began to explore and push the aesthetic edges of contructivist art, visual illusion, sacred geometry, and other spiritual and Trompe L’oeil influences. This led him to create this new series of uniquely contemporary mandala like images. They tease the viewer with a sense of altered perception, a feeling of deep inner peace, and a transcendent space. The viewer is remarkably confronted with a composition that continually changing the viewer’s spatial perception from the same work of Art.

This new visual adventure has led Thomas to create some of the most radiant and visually dynamic work since the transcendent paintings of Mark Rothco and Ad Reinhardt, with a new approach using candescent colors, seemingly simple but intricate compositions that change before the viewers eyes. Art and Digital creations that remarkably imbue his unique Artwork with a captivating, entrancing Three Dimensional kaleidoscopic experience that embraces the future of all arts.

Like a Jungian collective unconscious symbol, Thomas’s work has combined the best of aesthetic technique, geometry, Digital input and nature’s influences so that it's practically impossible for a viewer not to be seduced by the sheer power and mystique of his compositions.

When experiencing most artists’ work it takes some time for the viewer to comprehend the power of an extraordinary work of art. In Thomas’s case, time is a less important factor, as each piece dimensionally and chromatically changes while the viewer continues to experience new visual manifestations through this breakthrough body of work created by a remarkably inspired artist.

Thomas lives with his wife, Melanie, and their four children near Santa Rosa, California, overlooking the Russian River, in a house he helped build and landscape. From musical notes to pointillism to pixels, Thomas has truly connected the dots.

- Karl Bornstein -