Tom Condon

January 24 – March 7, 2014

Tom Condon’s work blends his interests in painting and photography with his own personal history, making a visual experience out of Braille.

“I love the symbolic elements of language,” Condon says. “Most languages are visually rich apart from their content.”

Condon suffered from impaired vision and temporary blindness when he was in his early teens. An onset of Idiopathic Pseudotumor Cerebri, caused by an excess of spinal fluid, meant that he would spend the latter half of his childhood in and out of military hospitals.

Condon’s latest series began as a simple digital documentation of a Braille textbook. Removed from its context and rendered functionless to its original intended audience, the tactile language creates a visual landscape. Traces of fingerprints left on the most read sections of Braille inspired Condon to make each print a unique piece. After printing the photographs, he applied an encaustic wax directly to the surface. Carefully melting the wax with a hand torch, he mixed in metallic powders and pigments to the surface to create a finished image that, like the internal mechanics of photography and vision, is ultimately dependent on light.