Thom Gorst trained as an architect, qualifying in 1982. During the 1980s he worked in London for the Greater London Council, and was a member of the Coin Street Design Team. During this time he was a regular contributor to the Building Design magazine and the Architects Journal , where he was a member of the editorial board. By the end of the 80′s he moved to the south west, and taught at Bath University and the University of the West of England, specialising in the history and theory of art and architecture.
He started work on what would become his doctorate in 2005 at the Glasgow School of Art. The study soon evolved into an aesthetic examination into the potential of industrial ruins to be regarded as things of beauty, and he engaged with many ruinous examples of modernity, such as factories, warehouses and ships. It was an unplanned part of the academic unfolding of the subject that in late 2008 the first paintings were made.
“These images owe much to my training as an architect: they are orthogonal and driven by proportion and geometry. But they scratch away at the surface of modernist perfection and reveal that all of our works ultimately arrive at dissolution”.
Art Work
’Sailing By’ Series
‘Sailing By 1′
£950 / Acrylic on Canvas / 1200mmx600mm
This series of four canvases contrasts various imagined paint schemes – showing the owners’ colours, and also here the painted ciphers of an arrow pointing to where a tug might push.
‘Sailing By 2′
£950 / Acrylic on Canvas / 1200mmx600mm
Each of the canvases depicts the patterns of weld lines used in ships’ construction. Here, they are angled upwards at the bow, just below the anchor.
‘Sailing By 3′
£950 / Acrylic on Canvas / 1200mmx600mm
Here the paint scheme shows a suggestion of an owner’s name, placed boldly on the ship’s side to be read at a great distance. We intrude on it closely, and wonder what or who ‘AN’ might be part of.
‘Sailing By 4′
£950 / Acrylic on Canvas /
1200mmx600mm
The canvases also show corrosion, fading, vegetal growth, salt,
encrustation, black streaks made by berthing fenders; and here
there is something oozing out of a mysterious hole.
All Other Work
‘Arctic Cruise’
£950 / Acrylic on Canvas / 1000mmx1000mm
An elderly cruise ship has arrived in the far north. It disgorges passengers who have paid for a coach trip to Santa’s grotto. I am more interested in the way the water laps against the hull.
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‘English Star’
£800 / Acrylic on canvas / 760mm x 760mm
This old Blue Star Line reefer (refrigerated cargo ship) was found in 2011 laid up in Gdynia, Poland, next to sister ship New Zealand Star. The cruise ship I was lecturing on was empty: everyone had gone on tours. Alone on the sun deck I planned this painting, and I am very fond of it.
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‘In Ballast: Starboard Side’
£750 / Acrylic on canvas / 760mm x 760mm
Rubbing rust and algae have also had their say on the old tanker’s side: whatever corporation’s name ‘EN’ was part of has now been supplemented by new, arguably more interesting messages.
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‘In Ballast: Port Side’
£750 / Acrylic on canvas / 760mm x 760mm
An old tanker with its successively repositioned load lines. In time, what was intended to be direct and informative has become a palimpsest of revisions.
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‘In Contemplation of Distances’
£850 FRAMED / Acrylic on Canvas / 800mmx800mm
SOLD
I made a visit to the derelict Mersey ferry Royal Iris at Woolwich in November 2010. I wanted to climb on board, but lost my nerve. There was physical distance, but also that of time: as a child I well remember this fabled ‘fish and chip boat’.
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‘Manxman No 1′
£450 / Acrylic on Canvas / 400mmx500mm
SOLD
Chequerplate near the anchor chain of the derelict Isle of Man ferry ferry Manxman. The blue colour was chosen for its last rebranding as a night spot
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‘The X in Manxman’
£400 / Acrylic on Canvas / 400mmx500mm
SOLD
The Manxman was lying derelict in Sunderland when I flew up in 2006 to be given free access. This is the middle letter of its name on the stern of the ship.
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‘Sand Dredger’
£800 / Acrylic on Canvas / 760mmx760mm
This was painted in my French studio in Honfleur, where Port of Rouen dredgers pass every day, clearing the long channel up the Seine. I wondered what one would look like if it was transformed into a thing of sand. I collected the material for this painting myself from the south bank of the estuary.
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£950 / Acrylic on Canvas / 1000mmx1000mm Whilst the elderly cruise ships lies at its berth, waiting for its passengers to return from their trip to Santa’s grotto, my imagination takes me even further into the ‘land of the midnight sun’. £800 / Acrylic on Canvas / 760mmx760mm SOLD I imagine a working ship carrying molasses to be used as cattle feed; a huge, ponderous metal construction that reeks of treacle and whose slow diesel engine thumps along its route, throwing its smoke from this funnel. I knew it well – my father was captain. £400 / Acrylic on Canvas / 400mmx500mm A tanker slows to pick up the river pilot, who has to scale the rope ladder before the ship gets back on its way. £300 / Acrylic on Canvas / 400mmx500mm SOLD Seen from the deck of the Queen Victoria as it edged past the container berths on its way out to a Mediterranean cruise. £300 / Acrylic on Canvas / 400mmx500mm SOLD The Duke of Lancaster was a British Railways ferry. When seen close-to, the mutilation of the ship’s name emphasises its abjection, and the blank windows mask the 1950s interiors which, with their fire places, sconce lights and armchairs, attempted to ameliorate the frequently uncomfortable crossings. £300 / Acrylic on Canvas / 400mmx500mm The small fishery research ship Sarsia was being converted into a luxury yacht in Birkenhead’s docklands when some scallies opened the seacocks and it rolled over. There it was: two welding seams and six rivets. It’s still there. £300 / Acrylic on Canvas / 400mmx500mm A dredger on the Seine Estuary clearing the channel up to Rouen. £800 / Acrylic on Canvas / 760mmx760mm SOLD The colour is suggested by that of the Union Castle Line – famed for its trade with South Africa until the 1970s.‘Arctic Circle’
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‘Athelduke’
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‘Pilot Ladder’
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‘CMA CGM Mozart Barcelona’
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‘Duke of Lancaster’
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‘Sarsia in East Float’
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‘Samuel de Champlain of Honfleur’
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‘The Ruins of Empire’
Such an Empire was already crumbling.— — — — — — ——————— — — — — — —