This is Tom Shannon creating one of his latest paintings. His process—swinging a giant pendulum rigged with six remote control paint guns over a canvas—is a marriage of chaos and control. His finished pieces…well, they’re incredible.
On his unique process, the artist explained, “the pendulum lets me step outside to observe nature as it produces layer after layer of detail.” OK…
On his unique process, the artist further explained that his influences included French physicist (and pendulum OG) Leon Foucault as well as the “indelible reference point of LSD.” Ah, gotcha!
Shannon is 62 years old now, but one of his first famous works, created when he was 22, was a “robot-philodendron cyborg that writhed when you stroked its leaves.” With that biographical bit, I guess it seems perfectly normal that he’d settle into remote control paint pendulums in his later years.
Shannon’s pendulum paintings will be exhibited at the Francis M. Naumann Fine Art gallery in New York starting April 15. [Tom Shannon via Wired]
