Tom McKinley American, b. 1955

Tom McKinley (b. 1955, Bay City, Michigan) was educated in both Europe and the United States. He began his studies at Goddard College in Vermont and continued his education in England at the Falmouth School of Art, Ravensbourne College of Art, London, and Brighton Polytechnic. He is currently living and working in Berkeley, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work is featured in several private and public collections, including the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, now part of the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Tom McKinley’s hyper realistic paintings explore the relationships between objects, architecture, and the natural world. Through his imagined settings, McKinley studies the link between light and color investigating how interior spaces interact with landscape. Many of the artist’s paintings depict quiet, still, uninhabited spaces. While most are set within the interior of a home, they bear no trace of human presence or individuation. The edge of a billiard table, the corner of a pool, a section of a veranda—these elegant, unexpected architectural moments are rendered with meditative precision. A rhythm of geometry, pattern, and repeating forms permeates these serene environments. Light from peripheral windows subtly animates the otherwise still compositions, creating a quiet tension between realism and abstraction. Tom McKinley paints in a meticulously photorealist style, a technique that further heightens the surreal, contemplative nature of his imagery.