Carrying Instruments on Their Backs Two Musicians Climb Mt. Disappointment (2004)
mixed media
42 x 20 in.

This is the 4th or fifth triptych I’ve made. I revisit this format when I feel it works for something. In this case, the musicians are struggling to climb this huge rock to play their music…a bass drum and a bass fiddle. What would it sound like? Log rhythms and musical notation are on the side panels. The rope they are holding enters “real space” on the left and is tied to a hook.

--Tom Gehrig

Tom Gehrig (b. 1948, Oakland, California) is a Bay Area artist whose compositions bear the intention to set a surreal stage for personal, site-specific happenings.  In his work, odd structures, formulas and information technologies are integrated into the landscape—or juxtaposed with it—to become an integral whole. The works are often surrounded by a mixed media background that could include mathematics, maps, bits of sentences, poems and other miscellanea. An unusual dichotomy takes place between the theater that is happening within the canvas and the sea of information that it floats upon.

Tom received a B.A. (1971) at the California College of the Arts where he studied painting with Arthur Okamura, Peter Shoemaker and Robert Bechtle. He received an M.F.A. (1973) in Intermedia at Mills College, where he worked closely with electronic music composer Robert Ashley. Tom is the recent recipient of the Individual Artists Grant from the Marin Arts Council. His work is collected nationally and is represented by D'Adamo-Woltz Gallery in Seattle, WA and Gallatin River Gallery in Big Sky, Montana.

Visit Tom Gehrig's website at: www.tomgehrig.com