Tom Costantini
Painting / drawing / mixed media (2 dimensional)
Artist Statement
I paint with watercolors to illustrate favorite subjects including vintage cars, Midcentury furniture and decor, and scenes from my travels. I approach them with a playful sense of humor, and strive to offset the subjects with compelling patterns and backgrounds, lately informed by the bright colors and bold layouts of 1960s Pop Art and advertising imagery. My years in interior design and architectural drafting find an echo in the detailed linework and graphic lettering in the images.
A lifetime of collecting toy cars and a desire to incorporate them in my art led to the start of my creating a series of shadowbox assemblages combining vintage toys and other recycled objects with mixed media collaged images.
You can view more of my artwork at www.instagram.com/tomcostantiniart .
Artist Bio
I’ve been around art from an early age, with a Mom who did painting, printmaking, sculpture and fabric arts, and I started drawing and sketching early in my childhood on the east coast. I moved to Washington to attend college in Olympia, and I’ve been in Seattle for 39 years and a West Seattle resident for 18 years. My career has been in interior design and architectural drafting. In my fifties I decided to devote more time to artmaking, and when my Mom passed away in 2017 I vowed to honor her memory by developing the artistic talents she sowed in me as far as I can.
I began taking watercolor classes and found that I loved using the luminescent qualities of the medium to express emotions and tell stories. An invitation to show in the West Seattle Art Walk in 2018 was the beginning of my association with the Art Walk and Art Tour, and led to fulfilling relationships with many other local artists and viewers of my work. And joining Fogue Studios & Gallery in Georgetown was another step in expanding my artistic community, and greatly fuels my creative life today.