Haven Gallery | 12/18-1/16 | Northport, NY

Thomas Ascott

Deep in the Forest

The artwork of Thomas Ascott is about accumulated memories and sensory experiences the artist has witnessed firsthand—things he’s touched, felt, heard and seen. These experiences swirl around in his consciousness until they finally make their way onto paper. And the ultimate result are scenes that seem to come from another world, of fantastical stylized characters—sometimes human in both skeletal and living forms, sometimes anthropomorphic creatures like frogs, salamanders and rhinoceri.A Tithe for the Old Gods, oil on board, 11 x 14"

In his oil on board A Tithe for the Old Gods, a small skeleton figure presents a tithe to a massive, kingly frog figure wading in a pond, seemingly a god of some sort. In another anthropomorphized scene, an orange salamander clutches his scarf, peering down at a sparrow perched on his back. The two are surrounded by blue azaleas and exude a sense of harmony, existing side by side. Amid the Blue Azaleas, oil on board, 10 x 8"

“The oil paintings of Thomas Ascott are unusually enchanting worlds of amity and imagination. Ascott has created a world of friendship, opening up and befriending skeletal avatars from the afterworld with humans and animals, all teeming with life and visiting historic and personal mythologies through their narratives,” says Erica Berkowitz, gallery owner and director of Haven Gallery in Northport, New York. “Each painting is a window to our childhood, returning us back to a far but familiar world of intrigue, imagination and innocence.”The Tire Swing, oil on board, 11 x 14"