TOM GALLANT
Silkscreen print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm
29·7 × 42 cm
EDITION #10 OF 25
 
Tom Gallant appropriates images and motifs that connect to man’s inhumanity and its influence on visual culture. His background in illustration and printmaking has influenced his fascination with the didactic image and the dissemination of ideas through the various industrial revolutions, from the industry of organised religion to the printing press and the loom. Gallant has placed research and the analysis of literature at the core of his practice and the psychological, social and cultural influences on the narrator and the reader; through the exploration of collector culture such as etymological collections of moths, gothic rose windows, and Victorian wallpaper. 
For the Portfolio Gallant has made an exquisitely layered paper cut collaging a filigree William Morris tulip pattern onto Islamic imagery. The composition is in the form of a dung beetle. Symbolic of the land of the Ottomans where tulips originally flourished, this creature buries itself and its offspring underground, like a bulb. Its abundance is tied closely to trade routes; to animal and human traffic. An interesting migrant from Muslim countries that navigates by the stars.