Photography and the Arts

Tom R. Chambers

Working Relationship with Harvey J. Bott (artist) (1974)

Tom R. Chambers worked with Harvey J. Bott documenting (photo) his ​sculpture when the artist had a studio, “Loft on Strand” in Galveston, Texas. ​Bott noticed Chambers’ photo exhibition, “Once Upon a Strand” on display, ​was impressed, and contacted him to provide the documentation.

This was Chambers’ first encounter with art and an artist at the Fine Arts level. ​He considers Bott his mentor, and credits him with putting him (Chambers) on ​track with Abstract/Geometric/Minimalist art.

Bott invited Chambers to show some of his coverage, “Tom Chambers Looks ​at H.J. Bott Sculpture, a Photo Essay” as a part of his (Bott) overall exhibition:

"Early Works“, "Tom Chambers Looks at HJ Bott Sculpture, a Photo Essay“, ​"New DoV Series", Rosenberg Library, Harris and Wortham Galleries ​(sculpture, paintings, assemblages curated by John Hyatt), Galveston Island, ​Texas,1974.

Bott's website:

HJ BOTT

Viewpoint Photo Gallery, Lubbock, Texas (1982-1983)

Tom R. Chambers founded and directed Viewpoint Photo Gallery in Lubbock, Texas (1982 - 1983). He also managed a photo department for Texas Tech University (Health Sciences Center) during this time.

He curated exhibitions for the following photographers: Michael Ahnemann (September 17 - October 16), Richard Loftis (October 22 - November 20), Robert Hirsch (December 3 - January 1), Dan McCormack (January 7 - February 6), David Halpern (February 11 - March 12), Steven Schwartzman (March 18 - April 16), Priscilla Smith (April 16 - May 22), Martin Benjamin (American Photographer magazine reviewed his exhibition) (April 22 - May 21), and Layle Silbert (May 27 - June 25).

The photo was made by David Halpern of his installation at the gallery.

Tom R. Chambers is seen standing outside his gallery (photo by David Halpern, 1983).

Dyer Street Portraiture (1983)

This photo documentary project focuses on the denizens of a military street - Dyer - in El Paso, Texas, 1983. The photo sessions are staged in the sense that the subjects are posed in relation to their surroundings.

“The subject content on the human condition presentation by your 'Dyer Street Portraiture' series was somewhat disconcerting; these photos were definitely not the cotton candy glamor queen shots. Assessing the concept of creating a studio portrait vs an ageless portrait is evaluating the selection of the appropriateness of one of the facets of the gesture of a smile vs non-smile gesture leans more depth and ambiance to the portrait. The overall impression of your portraits left the impact of a haunting punch. I Believe my preference is your masterfully delivered jab of enlightenment. Perhaps with a slight upper cut (a short swing blow from beneath to the opponents chin) - your portraiture helped me to condense and to fine tune my portrait style into - in your face - defined more precisely as close up and personal.” (Reviewer)

Comments/Reviews:

"The black-and-white images record a diversity of common people in an urban habitat with an ambiance of film noir." (Notable Exhibitions section, American Photographer magazine, March, 1986)

"Your images are strong, direct and honest." (Arthur Goldsmith, Editorial Director, Popular Photography magazine) (1984)

"The images are well seen, and the concept seems to be viable. The series is a clean, well-photographed group of pictures." (Beaumont Newhall, Photographic Historian, The University of New Mexico) (1984)

"I hope a wider public will have an opportunity to see the pictures." (Peter Bunnell, Photographic Historian, Princeton University) (1984)

"It was very good to see the images, and I found them quite strong, both formally and emotionally." (Keith Davis, Curator, Photographic Collections, Hallmark Cards Incorporated) (1984)

"You have some very good pictures. I wish you lots of luck." (Mary Ellen Mark, Documentary Photographer) (1984)

"I always appreciate another person's very sincere efforts at his craft." (Judy Dater, Fine Arts Photographer) (1984)

"I was pleasantly surprised to look at your work. I believe it's the strongest I've seen." (Robert Hirsch, Director, Southern Light Gallery, Amarillo College) (1984)

Exhibitions:

"Dyer Street Portraiture" (solo show), PhotoForum Online Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, U.S.A., 1997.

"Dyer Street Portraiture", "Photo 1991" (group show), Lincoln [Flanagan] Campus Art Gallery, Community College of Rhode Island, Lincoln, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1991.

"Dyer Street Portraiture", "Photo Show 1988" (group show), Corridor Gallery, Department of Transportation, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (sponsored by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts), 1988.

"Dyer Street Portraiture" (solo show), The Silver Bullet Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (listed in the Notable Exhibitions section of American Photo magazine, March, 1986), 1986.

"Dyer Street Portraiture", "Photo 1985" (group show), The Gallery of Fine Arts (Southeast Museum of Photography), Daytona State College (Daytona Beach Community College), Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S.A., 1985.

"Dyer Street Portraiture" (solo show), Southern Light Gallery, Amarillo College, Amarillo, Texas, U.S.A., 1985.

Descendants 350 (1986)

This photo album of Descendants of many of the First Settlers of Rhode Island pays tribute to the trials and tribulations that their Ancestors were subjected to during the early to middle 1600s. It offers a unique look and study of the State's early history as it relates to images of Descendants (contemporaries) as icons or symbols to pay tribute to and talk about their Ancestors' (First Settlers') contributions through text extracted from The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island (and other sources). This contemporary approach resurrects the past through the present: discussion of Ancestral contributions to the State's development via historical text and visualization of their Descendants, today (1986), through documentary photography to bring forth those founding bloodlines, and to offer to the viewer a likeness or similarity of features between the Descendants and their Ancestors. This project was funded by Providence 350, Inc. as a part of Rhode Island's 350th Anniversary Celebration, 1986. Chambers received a Proclamation from Edward DiPrete, Governor of Rhode Island.

This unique coupling of present and past bloodlines makes this project special: Rhode Island's early history is referenced, and the Ancestors'/First Settlers' contributions in formulating the State's history are genetically perpetuated through today's Descendants of those First Families, our contemporaries and those individuals who are alive and interact with other residents of the State during our present time. This sense of presence or immediacy is the key factor that brings this project to the forefront for consideration and discussion. The expression and posture of the Descendants within the images are essentially the same throughout the series of photographs to establish a common thread or connection, which indicates a unity of pride for their Ancestry. Even though the photographs can be viewed strictly as portraiture, they are also a collection of icons or symbols that presents itself through flesh objects (Descendants) as gifts of gratitude, respect and admiration for those Ancestors/First Settlers who founded and settled a new society based on freedom from religious persecution.

Three out of 40 photographs shown.

Three out of 40 photographs shown.

Exhibitions:

Descendants 350 (solo show), Rhode Island State Archives, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (accepted by the Secretary of State as a part (ID 2004-48) of the Rhode Island State Archives Permanent Collection), 1991.

Descendants 350 (solo show), The Old Colony House, Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (sponsored by the Secretary of State's Office, Rhode Island), 1988.

Descendants 350 (solo show), The State House, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (sponsored by the Secretary of State's Office, Rhode Island; and received a Governor's Proclamation), 1988.

Descendants 350 (solo show), The Barrington Public Library, Barrington, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution), 1988.

Descendants 350 (solo show), Faculty Club Gallery, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1987.

Descendants 350 (solo show), The Warwick Museum of Art, Warwick, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1987.

Descendants 350 (solo show), The Narragansett Pier Free Library, Narrangansett, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (sponsored by the Narragansett Historical Society), 1987.

Descendants 350 (solo show), CCE Gallery, The University of Rhode Island, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1987.

Descendants 350 (solo show), The Roger Williams Park Museum (Museum of Natural History and Planetarium), Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (sponsored by the City of Providence), 1987.

Descendants 350 (solo show), The Fleet Center Gallery/50 Kennedy Plaza, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (grant - Providence 350, Inc.), 1986.

News coverage: "Tom Chambers unique exhibit sponsored by Providence 350". The stern features of Trooper William A. Rathbun, Sr. gaze out at the onlooker from the veranda of the Surf Hotel on Block Island, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the whispers of history. The photograph of the seated Rathbun is one of 40 portraits of Rhode Islanders, all descendants of founding families, by Tom R. Chambers, sponsored by Providence 350, Inc. The exhibit is on display in the Fleet Center, 50 Kennedy Plaza, through next Wednesday. Chambers, official photographer for Mayor Joseph R. Paolino, Jr., said the original idea was his own. "I approached Providence 350, and they liked the idea and gave me a $1300 grant," he said.

Rathbun is a 10th-generation descendant of John Rathbone, one of 16 purchasers of Block Island, who died in 1702. Another portrait shows Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth A. Angell, whose ancestor, Thomas Angell (1618-1694) settled Providence with Roger Williams and served as commissioner, juryman, constable, freeman and town clerk. The bishop is shown relaxed in the Superior Court House. Charles C. Whipple crouches over an ancestral tombstone in Providence's North Burial Ground. He is a 10th-generation descendant of John Whipple, 1617-1685, a purchaser. Harold Champlin shows another side of the founding families - a member of the Narragansett Indian tribe, he stares out from a pier at India Point Park, the waters of the Providence River dark behind him.

Chambers found his subjects through publicity in newspapers, magazines and television. "Several people called in," he said, "then I got a call from Robert Allen Greene. He's a 12th and 13th generation - two different families - descendant of John Coggeshall, 1591-1647, a signer of the Portsmouth Compact. Robert Greene is a genealogist. I would give him certain first family names I had researched out, and he would plug in the descendants." Chambers said he relied on the 1969 revised edition of the Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island for his data. "I would reach people and explain the project," he said. "I would ask if they were willing to let me take a documentary portrait. Not one person refused me. They have a lot of pride in their ancestry." (Thomas J. Morgan, Staff Writer, Providence Journal-Bulletin, Providence, Rhode Island, 1986)

News coverage: Descendants 350, an exhibition by fine arts photographer, Tom R. Chambers, views like a stately procession of New England nobility. The show consists of black-and-white portraits of 40 Rhode Island scions who singularly and collectively convey an intense bond with local governmental, social and religious beginnings. Chambers photographed each descendant in settings reflective of their ancestors' respective backgrounds.

So we meet William A. Rathbun, Sr. looking stern-faced on the deck of the Surf Hotel on Block Island. He's a 10th-generation descendant of John Rathbone (b. -, d. 1702), who, along with 15 fellow settlers, made his mark on the Ocean State by purchasing Block Island, according to The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island. George Williams appears in front of the Roger Williams Monument and Burial Site at Prospect Park in Providence. Roger Williams (b. 1599, d. 1683), of course, founded "Providences of the most Holy and only wise I called Providence." Pictured in the Council Chambers at Providence City Hall, Jeanne M. Desrosiers, an 11th-generation descendant, rekindles the spirit of Thomas Olney (b. 1600, d. 1682), a deputy and town councilman whose signature was among those that ratified this state's government. Ninth-generation scion, Charles C. Tillinghast, gazes at the lens from aside the Tillinghast Monument, which stands on Benefit Street in commemoration of Pardon Tillinghast (b. 1622, d. 1718), pastor of the First Baptist Church and overseer of the poor. 

"They strike a certain pose, posture or expression to convey a sense of self-worth, pride and an awareness of my presence," says Chambers of his ancestral subjects. "Descendants/350, A Photographic Tribute to the First Settlers of Rhode Island," which was funded by Providence 350, Inc., is hanging in the Roger Williams Park Museum through Feb. 15. The exhibition will be displayed at the University of Rhode Island's Extension Center Gallery from March 2 through 27 and at the Narragansett Pier Free Library from April 5 to May1. (Providence Business News, Providence, Rhode Island, February 2, 1987)

News coverage: "Museum showing 350th photo project." A photographic linkage of past and present is on display through Aug. 29 at the Warwick Museum. The exhibit presents "Descendants 350: A Photographic Tribute to the First Settlers of Rhode Island," a collection of works by Tom R. Chambers of Providence, originally produced as part of the State's 350th Anniversary Celebration last year. The 40 photos show living descendants of Rhode Island's founders in settings around the State connected with their ancestors’ role in the State's beginning.

A number of notable Warwickites from the past are represented by the current generation. Chambers, who is staff photographer for Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino, Jr., took six months to complete the project, which includes a text detailing the history of the ancestor of each photo subject. "Even though the album of photographs can be viewed strictly as portraiture," wrote Chambers in an introduction to the exhibit, "it is also a collection of icons or symbols that presents itself through 'flesh' objects (the descendants) as gifts of gratitude, respect and admiration for those ancestors who founded a new society (Rhode Island) based on religious freedom and rights for all." 

Each photo is what photographers call an "environmental portrait," with the subject person placed in an environment that relates something about him/her and his/her heritage. For example, Fred Vohr, a 10th-generation descendant of Warwick founder, Samuel Gorton, is seen outside the Warwick City Hall. Other Warwick-connected persons are: Phillips Lillibridge, 11th-generation descendant of Stukeley Westcott; Edwin G. Wickes, 10th-generation descendant of John Wickes; Thomas E. Greene, 11th-generation descendant of John Greene; Rodney Bailey, 11th-generation descendant of Randall Holden; Russell W. Greene, 12th-generation descendant of William Carpenter; Franklin G. Arnold, 12th-generation descendant of William Arnold; and Samuel C.H. Dumas, 11th-generation descendant of Samuel Bennett. Another interesting aspect of the show is a joint project of the Museum and Insight that allows visually-impaired persons to "see" the exhibit. An audio tape recording has been made with a description of each photo and a recitation of its accompanying historical text. Visually-impaired museum goers can listen with a tape recorder to get a sense of the look of the exhibit. (Warwick Beacon, Warwick, Rhode Island, June 18, 1987)

News coverage: "Exhibit on R.I. settlers is at State House". Show pairs photos of descendants with accounts of their ancestors' lives. It probably wasn't funny to John Sweet, but three-and-a-half centuries and 11 generations later, Earl Sweet Palmer, Jr. Gets quite a chuckle out of his ancestor's antics. It seems John Sweet, one of Rhode Island's original settlers, ran into a little trouble back in the 1600s, when he was "presented by the grand jury for shooting a wolf dog of Colonel Endicott's." 

Whether Sweet was convicted of that crime remains unclear, but Palmer said yesterday that the shooting was probably a sign of the times. "Every one of them was a rebel," Palmer said with a laugh as he read a bit about his family history yesterday at the State House. Palmer was one of several descendants of the original settlers who attended the opening of a photo exhibit honoring their ancestors.

Descendants 350, by photographer Tom R. Chambers, was completed in 1986 as part of the State's 350th Anniversary Celebration. It has been exhibited at seven sites, and is at the State House for a 10-day showing, through July 1. The exhibit pairs photos of the descendants with brief accounts of their ancestors' lives.

The 40 original settlers' names are familiar: Williams, Brown, Waterman, Angell, Wickenden, Greene, Coggeshall. The exhibition is to be shown later this summer at the Old Colony House in Newport. (Kevin Sullivan, State House Bureau, Providence Journal-Bulletin, June 21, 1988)

Hot City (1989)

Tom R. Chambers put together this project based on his coverage of Providence, Rhode Island as Personal Photographer to Mayor Joseph R. Paolino, Jr. and City Photographer during 1985-1990. At the time, it offered an interesting aspect to historical, visual documentation. Usually, this type of display shows past generations involved in various activities, and the viewer can only attempt to relate to what is perceived as having happened during that particular era. Since "Hot City" involved contemporaries, the viewer may have had personal recall of an activity, may have known and related with an individual in the coverage and in fact, may very well have been a part of the documentation process. The project received a Proclamation from Mayor Joseph R. Paolino, Jr.

News coverage: "Portfolio", Sunday Journal Magazine, The Providence Journal-Bulletin (June 25, 1989), Providence, Rhode Island: 

"Tom Chambers is a documentary photographer who works as an official photographer for the City of Providence. Although his job requires that he photograph officials at public events, he often also focuses on the ordinary people who appear at these gatherings and elsewhere in Providence.

In the photographs on these pages, we see moments that wouldn't come across in a 60-second TV news story: a boy waiting for a parade to start; a little boy holding his father's hand; a little boy wearing a police helmet and standing in a crowd of people at a parade; and a girl riding and waving to a crowd.

These images are selected from among the 400 prints now appearing in an exhibit of Chambers' work at Hospital Trust National Bank. Entitled 'Hot City', the exhibit continues through August."

Mother’s 45s (1990)

Tom R. Chambers matched his mother's 45rpm records with the family photographs to create 

assemblages by using the hole spaces of the records to frame the images. He eventually arrived at a satisfactory combination, incorporating forty-five 45rpm records with images and a portion of each song onto an audio cassette to be used as a part of the exhibition. He faded-in/faded-out the songs, and looped them for continuous play and in order with the wall display of the photo/record assemblages.

Five out of 45 assemblages shown.

Ms45s

The photographs of his mother were sequenced according to the chronology of her life, which spanned almost 60 years. When the piece is viewed along with the songs, the sound stimulus pulls the viewer from record to record (1-45) and this process has some interesting points: the maturation process of his mother is seen; the man who came into her life and eventually became her husband and his father is seen; the maturation process of her only child (him) is seen; the change in hair and fashion styles is seen; the change in automobile models is seen; and various locales throughout the United States are seen. This project (and its success) is the high point of his visual arts career for the simple reason that it involves and perpetuates his mother's existence.

News coverage: "Lifebeat - Putting Mama On The Record", Providence Journal Bulletin (April20, 1990), Providence, Rhode Island: "In ​a show that opens today at Gallery One, the Texas-born artist bares a more personal, less public side of himself. The result is a ​moving tribute to his own mother that Chambers hopes will stir memories and emotions in everyone.“

Gallery One, Providence, Rhode Island, April, 1990.

Curatorial Work: National Gallery of Zimbabwe (1993-1995)

Tom R. Chambers performed extensive curatorial work at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. These exhibitions are just a few of the many he put together from the Gallery's Permanent Collection.

Tom R. Chambers performed extensive curatorial work at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. These exhibitions are just a few of the many he put together from the Gallery's Permanent Collection.

Mr. Chambers was enrolled as a Peace Corps Volunteer on December 6, 1992. Assigned to the Ministry of Recreation, Sports and Culture, he was posted as a Curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe to produce a Permanent Collection Catalogue. His responsibilities included research/classification; computerization (he wrote a grant proposal to computerize the Permanent Collection information for which he received US$9000.00 from the Social Science Research Council/African Archives and Museums Project, New York City); in-house layout/design of the Catalogue (via Aldus Pagemaker); and computerization/curatorial training of National Gallery staff with regard to the Permanent Collection.

He also prepared/curated numerous exhibitions from the Permanent Collection for public cultural enhancement and education; researched/re-configured the Traditional African Permanent Display Gallery; and generated National Gallery involvement with ICOM/AFRICOM to standardize the computerization of the Permanent Collection information to conform with computerized collections information throughout Africa for cultural exchange and protection of African Heritage.

As a visual artist, Mr. Chambers was invited by the National Gallery to exhibit a series of conceptual photographic images, Variations on the Dan Mask, to offer his interpretation of the Traditional African mask form; and the exhibition was officially opened in December 1995 by the United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe. Note: Mr. Chambers extended his Service for a third year to complete the Permanent Collection Project to produce the Catalogue.

As a Secondary Project, Mr. Chambers initiated and then served as the Instructor for The McEwen Photographic Studio. The namesake was selected as a tribute to Frank McEwen, the first Director of the National Gallery (1957-1973), and in recognition of his Workshop School activities for African artists during the 1950s and 1960s. The McEwen Photographic Studio has now become an integral part of the National Gallery Art School curriculum, and it provides African art students an opportunity to experience the medium of photography as another tool for self-expression and vocational potential.

Mr. Chambers taught this seven-month photographic workshop each year (1993, 1994 and 1995) of his Peace Corps Service, and the process culminated in an annual exhibition at the National Gallery, respectively: "Moments In Time" (1993); "Moments In Time II" (1994); and "Moments In Time III" (1995). The United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe officially opened the first two exhibitions; the Country Director of Peace Corps Zimbabwe officially opened the last one; and the United States Peace Corps was a partial sponsor of all three openings.

Mr. Chambers also succeeded in obtaining funding to support the photographic workshop process including Kodak Zimbabwe Ltd. (materials grants totaling US$3000.00), Caltex Oil Zimbabwe Ltd. (US$1000.00), Johnson and Johnson Zimbabwe Ltd. (US$400.00), Randalls Holdings (Pvt.) Ltd. (US$150.00), Meikles Consolidated Holdings (Pvt.) Ltd. (US$250.00), BAT Zimbabwe Ltd. (US$200.00) and Crown Cork Company Ltd. (US$60.00) - total: US$5060.00.

As a Tertiary Project, Mr. Chambers initiated, and advised SKIA (Street Kids In Action), a youth development program for at-risk youth in the urban areas (particularly, Harare) of Zimbabwe. He succeeded in bringing together, and motivating numerous individuals from the Zimbabwean community to move SKIA forward, at grass-roots level, as a Zimbabwean-based program to address the Street Kids issue in an all-encompassing manner. Specifically, a small university approach is planned, in which street children and young adults can benefit from basic education classes, arts/vocational workshops, counseling, athletics and maintenance (Half-Way House approach for the truly destitute); the children are re-integrated in the Public Education system, reunited with the family unit, and placed with corporations/organizations as trainees/assistants/interns to offer them co-operative opportunities.

The program has created a greater awareness of the Street Kids issue, and raised local funds (US$35000.00 - Charity Casinos, Mayoral Fund, Rotaract Clubs, corporations, fundraising events, individuals and memberships) to purchase a facility to implement its small university approach, and hire a Zimbabwean Project Manager. Mr. Chambers attended the United States Peace Corps Africa region Small Business Development and Youth Development Conference in Gaborone, Botswana (September 19-23, 1994) in connection with this program. In this same Advisor/Counselor role, he also provided guidance and assistance to a number of individuals and organizations seeking help and practical guidance in urban youth programs as far away as Kenya (where he made presentations to PCVs), Botswana and Ghana.

Mr. Chambers also served as a Project Adviser for American students who traveled to Zimbabwe on Study-Abroad programs through Scripps-Pitzer/University of Zimbabwe and School for International Training (He advised seven students in various cross-cultural projects.). In addition, as a Documentary Photographer, he generated a series of photographs (portraits/landscapes of Africans and their lifestyles in a rural area of Zimbabwe, Southwest of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection), and received a US Government grant (US$400.00) through the United States Information Service (USIS) to exhibit this series at the USIS Library in Harare, Zimbabwe (June, 1995). The U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe officially opened this exhibition.

The McEwen Photographic Studio (1993-1995)

Tom R. Chambers initiated and implemented this photographic studio for the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa), and its namesake is a tribute to Frank McEwen, the Gallery's first Director, and in recognition of his Workshop School activities for African artists during the 1950s and 1960s.

His (McEwen's) insight to nurture (then) exceptional talent through a rediscovered medium - sculpting in stone - is now reflected through international recognition of this contemporary art form. The introduction of the medium of photography into the Gallery's Art School (sponsored by BAT Ltd.) nurtured - over a three-year period (1993-1995) - the exceptional talent by African artists (school leavers) to grasp the medium and possibly, again, have a significant impact for the visual arts of Zimbabwe at the international level.

The students' photographs were exhibited as "Moments In Time" (1993), "Moments In Time II" (1994) and "Moments In Time III" (1995) at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Chambers received a letter from McEwen stating his appreciation of his namesake being used for the studio. Edward Gibson Lanpher, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe officially opened "Moments In Time" and "Moments In Time II", and David Bellama, Country Director, Zimbabwe, United States Peace Corps officially opened "Moments In Time III". Kodak Zimbabwe was the generous sponsor of the studio providing film, chemicals and paper.

Student Photo Examples:

News coverage: "Photography added to curriculum", The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, May 17, 1993: "A U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, Mr. Tom R. Chambers, has introduced photography as part of the 1993 curriculum for the BAT (Art) Workshop School. The workshop is an affiliate of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Mr. Chambers said that this is the first time the medium of photography has been introduced into the Workshop School curriculum as a serious tool for self-expression. He said that the fine arts/documentary photography program was named The McEwen Photographic Studio after the first director of the National Gallery and in recognition of his workshop activities for artists during the 1950s and 1960s. Mr. Chambers is currently teaching twelve second-year A-level art students at the workshop.“

Art review: "Glimpse of daily realities", The Herald, Harare, Zimbabwe, September 28, 1993: "A photographic exhibition by BAT art students at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. The black-and-white photographic exhibition on the upper deck of the National Gallery offers us a glimpse of the daily realities of city and suburban life. The display was organized and curated by Tom R. Chambers, a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer and multi-media artist who is currently on attachment to the conservation department of the National Gallery. This social documentary exhibition is a result of an eight-month photography course designed by Mr. Chambers for the BAT advanced-level art students. According to Chambers, the medium of photography is an important tool for self-expression and critical social inquiry within the visual arts of Zimbabwe. Unlike many other art forms, the photographs on display reach a wider audience through cognition and familiarity. The works project an academic fine arts dimension, and the social content is nothing short of captivating. Contrasts between extreme poverty and ostentatious wealth are depicted in the pictures with subtle implications. Some architectural shots reveal the struggle between metropolic and nature, while others simply capture the socio-economic pace of Harare. Images of hope and aspiration in the high-density suburbs are juxtaposed with depression and a stoic acceptance of the plights. Technically, the students show a flair for conceptual composition, selection, mood, tonal progression and transcription. Given that photographic literacy, beyond the narrative, still requires greater appreciation in Zimbabwe, this educational display should go a long way in redressing the status of photography as an art form." (Tony Mhonda, Art Critic)

News coverage: "Timeless Moment", "Art and About", Horizon Magazine, Harare, Zimbabwe, September, 1993: "Community photography with a fine arts slant is the subject of an exhibition, Moments In Time, at the National Gallery in Harare this month. Ten A-level students of the BAT Workshop School have spent the past eight months working with U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, Tom R. Chambers. Chambers introduced The McEwen Photographic Studio into the workshop program in honor of the late Frank McEwen, first director of the National Gallery and founder of the original workshop school.“

Art review: "Artful eyes behind a camera: how BATmen and women see Zimbabwe", The Northern News, Harare, Zimbabwe, December 1993-January 1994: "As exhibitions at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe go, this one was quiet and unassuming, a collection of fifty small black-and-white photographs by senior students in the BAT Art Workshop. But Moments In Time represents respectable breakthroughs on several fronts. The exhibition showcases the products of the first photography course in the BAT curriculum. "The McEwen Photographic Studio", named in homage to Frank McEwen, the first director of the National Gallery, offers a rare opportunity for black African art students to explore an expensive, technical medium of artistic expression. And if instructor, Tom R. Chambers, has his way, the new program will become a permanent part of the BAT curriculum.

Displayed first at the National Gallery in September, the photos were selected by Chambers, a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, for their artistic and documentary qualities. Chambers said in an interview that the fact that all of the students are artists gave them an advantage in using the medium creatively, and because of that, they generated wonderful fine arts images based on composition, shape and form. The students were weaker, however, in photojournalism. This was the first time they went out to document Zimbabwean society. There's a timidity there. You have to learn to be aggressive, polite of course, but aggressive in order to capture the good and the bad.

The eight-month course started with several weeks of classroom study of camera techniques, composition and the use of light and shadow. Following this introduction, the students then went out as a team to shoot the environs (subjects, objects and situations) all the while becoming conscious of the mind's eye. And later, they began shooting on their own. Chambers launched the course because he thinks that it is an underutilized medium in Zimbabwe's visual arts. He said that he had to start from scratch. With entrees from the wife of the American Ambassador, June Kronholz, he canvassed five Zimbabwe corporations for grants to buy cameras and equipment. He persuaded Kodak Zimbabwe Ltd., the biggest donor to the project, to give film, paper and chemicals. Chambers is trying to find fellowships in the United States for some of the students who want to continue their photographic studies."

News coverage: "Moments In Time", Kodak Region Review (News from around the European, African and Middle Eastern Region), April, 1994: "Kodak (Zimbabwe) Limited were the biggest donors to an exhibition called 'Moments In Time' held in the National Gallery of Zimbabwe late last year. They will be sponsoring the exhibition again this year. The exhibition comprised a collection of fifty black-and-white photographs taken by senior students in the BAT Art Workshop. The exhibition showcases the products of the first photographic course in the BAT curriculum. Instructor, Tom R. Chambers believes that photography is an underutilized medium in Zimbabwe's visual arts, and through his professional and personal network, he hopes to find several American venues for exhibiting Moments In Time.“

Art review: "Workshop features art images captured through the camera lens", The Sunday Mail, Harare, Zimbabwe, September 11, 1994: "A child sprawled on a pavement looking haggard with feet resting on a post; the shadow of a man on a scaffold structure; a woman donating coins to beggars under a bridge and other subjects, form part of the images captured through the camera lens being exhibited at the National Gallery. Dubbed 'Moments In Time II', this photographic exhibition marks the second year of 'The McEwen Photographic Studio' at the BAT Art Workshop and features the work of ten second-year art students and a third-year art student who was studio assistant. According to Tom R. Chambers, a visual artist, documentary photographer and the instructor for the studio, the exhibition stresses camera/darkroom technique and composition (light-play, shadow-play, juxtaposition, perspective, angularity, foreground-background interest, movement and timing).

The pictures reveal the wide spectrum of talent that exists in this medium with some really outstanding and imaginative work while the other photographs were average. I found particularly captivating Charles Kamangawana's human form photographed on a building structure all in shadow to depict an abstract image that is omnipresent. He explores this subject further by capturing just the leg of a man stepping on a scaffolding structure high above the ground. The picture was taken from a top-down perspective to create anxiety and anticipation. Given Sitandi creates an illusion by picturing a straight-forward documentary image through backlighting and shadow-play of human forms taken behind a curtain. Also interesting is his picture of a young girl child taken from above with the child's eyes looking forlornly into the camera while standing on a dusty road with no shoes on. The same feeling of compassion for the underprivileged is brought out by Givemore Huvasa's image of another child lying resignedly on a street pavement with feet resting on a post. Lighting is cleverly used to enhance the power of this picture. Russell Chawatama rotates his camera lens and juxtaposes a curtain versus a window to abstract the image of an otherwise straight-forward picture to evoke different interpretations and feelings from his image. In this exhibition, Chambers said that documentary/fine arts images convey personal experiences of the serious photographer and offer a unique vision of the world through a combination of camera technique and the mind's eye." (Pikirayi Deketeke, Art Critic)

Southwest of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection (1995)

This documentary photography project was in association with the Mucharambeyi family in Rusape, North East Zimbabwe and sponsored by U.S.I.S., Harare, Zimbabwe as the inaugural exhibition/event for the United States Information center (1995). The Mucharambeyi family attended, and Johnnie Carson, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, opened the exhibition.Chambers considers this project one of his more meaningful ones since he spent several days with the Mucharambeyi family in a rural setting that had him traveling from village to village for his assimilation into their culture and customs to provide photo documentation.

Flickr

"Hyperlink: PhotoForum Worldwide Exhibition" (Southwest of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection [SWRMC-1]) (group show), first, on-line/hyperlinked exhibition under the auspices of PhotoForum/Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, U.S.A. (initiator/coordinator), 1997.

"Southwest Of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection" (solo show), Corridor Gallery, United States Information Service (USIS), Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa (Received a United States Government Grant ; officially opened by the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe; and accepted as a part of the USIS Archives.), 1995.

Variations on the Dan Mask (1995)

Tom R. Chambers used an African Traditional mask from the Dan Tribe in Eastern Liberia (a piece from the National Gallery of Zimbabwe Permanent Collection: PC - 6400 - 0147) as the object for the photogram, then manipulated the non-exposed area generated from this original mask form to vary the look. There's a transference from a traditional form to a contemporary one, or in other words, this contemporary treatment remains within the confines of the traditional form (through direct contact), and borders on Abstract Art that reduces natural appearances to simplified forms.

Review: Interesting Photograms By Chambers On Display, The Sunday Mail Magazine, Harare, Zimbabwe (December 17, 1995):  "After missing a couple of Tom R. Chambers' photographic exhibitions, I finally caught up with his work at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe where he is showing some interesting photograms based on a African Traiditional mask form from the Dan Tribe in Eastern Liberia. Titled, 'Variations on the Dan Mask', Chambers offers his interpretations of the mask form depicting different shapes and symbols from which the viewer can also give his/her own interpretations. Though based on a Traditional mask, the different images have a much more contemporary appeal with graphical designs that have both humor and symbolic meaning. The artist's approach is said to border on abstract art as it reduces natural appearances to simplified forms. He says the first is the depiction of the essential or generic forms of things by elimination of particular and accidental variations. The other is the working away from the individual and particular with a view to creating an independent construct of shapes which will have aesthetic appeal in its own right. In some instances, the images reflect the moon and darkness while others depict a face hiding behind bars of different shapes." (Pikirayi Deketeke - Art Critic)

Exhibition:

National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa (December 12 - 31, 1995).  Johnnie Carson, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, opened the exhibition.

Comments:

"Great Concept - very modern. Economic, yet powerful. Congratulations, Tom!" (Tony Mhonda, Art Critic)

"Wonderful, engaging work!" (Stephen Williams, Regional Director, National Gallery in Bulawayo)

"The strength and impact of the image comes from 'pushing' the static information. There's a nice sense of play that also respects the formality of the image. Masks transform and transcend the wearer and these photograms alter the mask in the same way. Congratulations, Tom, and good luck!" (Sylvia Bews-Wright)

"What a fabulous idea. I wasn't able to stay on opening night, but have thoroughly enjoyed it today. V6, V7 and V8 are my favorites. Best wishes!" (Lucy Hall, Director, United States Information Service (Harare)

"I could see a very deep and creative work. I realized that foreign people who choose to live on this continent are really searching something higher than ordinary life. Congratulations and success!" (Alexandra Almeida, Global Government of Humanity, Brazil)

People to People (1997)

Tom R. Chambers had the opportunity to collaborate with Choi Ok-soo, a South Korean documentary photographer, by putting together a two-person show, "People to People" for the Kumho Art Center, Gwangju, South Korea. This was the first time in Gwangju for a Korean and American photographer to come together to offer an East/West perspective on the Korean People and Culture. The project resides as part of the center's Permanent Collection.

Media coverage: "An American Called Tom Has Photo Exhibition In Korea", Kumho Culture Monthly, May, 1997: "Tom R. Chambers' thirty-third exhibition is currently being held at the Kumho Art Center in Gwangju. The title of the show is "People To People", and it takes a look at the Korean people through documentary portraits. His photographs are combined with those of a Korean photographer, Choi Ok-soo, to offer a Western/Eastern perspective of documentation.Mr. Chambers said that photographs are made from different viewpoints, and these viewpoints represent the respective photographer's feelings about reality. And he continued by saying that his images project these feelings and make others aware of their own reality. Mr. Chambers spoke slowly and articulately during the interview for this story. He wanted to make sure that he was understood. He said that his way of speaking had become a habit since residing in Korea.

This month is very special for him because of his current exhibition and his recent marriage to a Korean woman. At the age of fifty, he decided to say adieu to single life, and got married to Cho Eun-mi at Hyangkyo in Gwangju. He had a Traditional Korean Wedding Ceremony, and Choi Ok-soo documented the event. Three of those photographs are a part of "People To People".

Mr. Chambers continued to talk about his photographic style by saying that he makes photographs only in black-and-white, because color detracts from subject content. His works in this exhibition focus on harmony between a human being and his/her environment. He documents people just as they are, naturally and truthfully." (Yoon Jeong-mi, Reporter; translation by Kim Hye-Kyung)

Exhibition: "People To People" (two-person show), Kumho Art Center, Gwangju, South Korea (accepted as a part of the Kumho Art Foundation Archives), 1997.

Chambers and Choi Ok-soo are seen with a monk at a temple (Jeungsimsa; Mugaksa; Wonhyosa) near Gwangju, South Korea where they made several photographs for the "People to People" project.

Focus Gallery (1997-)

Tom R. Chambers founded this gallery in 1997 for those individuals utilizing digital generation and manipulation as an art form. It is one of the oldest galleries on the Internet. Its status today is of a historical nature.

There are 170 artists represented in the gallery. The images are COPYRIGHTED and may not be used or reproduced without their creators' permission.

Hyperlink Worldwide Photo Forum (1997)

News coverage: "Focus" (Filmag, Philippines, January 26, 1998): "A truly unique, new and exciting international photography show was recently launched on the Internet's worldwide web. It is the first ever "Hyperlinked Photo Forum Worldwide Exhibition." This ongoing exhibit which will run for three months is open and free for viewing at Photo Forum's website.

Featuring the photographic images created by 23 photographers from all over the world, the exhibition, organized by Tom R. Chambers (one of the Photo Forum members), is under the auspices of Professor Andrew Davidhazy of the Photo Forum mailing list from the Imaging and Photographic Technology Department, School of Photographic Arts and Sciences of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, U.S.A.

Unlike all current photographic exhibition websites that are typically housed on a single server or location, this ongoing show sequentially links the mostly never-before-seen individual photo images chosen by the different participating photographers from different countries on their own servers.

"This may be the first time," says exhibit organizer, Tom R. Chambers, "that individuals have come together through this kind of hyperlinkage process on the Web to share and project a common interest ... in this case, the medium of photography. This holistic approach tests the true potential of cyberspace to be able to merge 'space' from different points on the globe."

The participating photographers who have yet to meet each other face-to-face are all members of and continually communicate through the Photo Forum mailing list. Through the Net, they have created, featured and linked individual exhibit pages of their chosen images for this hyperlinked photography exhibition.

The exhibit showcases the outstanding images of world-class photographers who are from or currently based in different countries such as:

Carl Volk (Boulder City, Nevada, U.S.A.), Roberta McGowan (Cherry Hill, New Jersey, U.S.A.), Peter Marshall (London, England), Albert Tirado (Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico), Steve Hodges (Perth, Australia), Palma Allen (Clarksburg, Maryland, U.S.A.), Mario Filipe Alves Oliveira Pires (Lisbon, Portugal), Jim Coe (Mill Valley, California, U.S.A.), Bruce Lane (Holyrood, Newfoundland, Canada), Terry Allan Smith (Austin, Texas, U.S.A.), Rob Miracle (Key West, Florida, U.S.A.), Jan Faul (Kensington, Maryland, U.S.A.),Alan Zinn (East Lansing, Flint, Michigan, U.S.A.), Ron Lowry (Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), Lisa Noll (Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.), Kirk Kief (Palatka, Florida, U.S.A.), Dan Cardish (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Christopher Strevens (South London, England), Paul Silver (Narragansett, Rhode Island, U.S.A.), Buddy du Preez (Alberta, Canada), Tom R. Chambers (Seoul, South Korea), Andrew Davidhazy (Rochester, New York, U.S.A.) and Dominique James (Pasay, Philippines).

In this first hyperlinked photo exhibition, the photographers chose not to present pictures based on a singular, definitive theme. Instead, the breadth and depth of the images and techniques used, and the manner in which the individual photo exhibit pages were presented by each photographer, serves only and all the more to highlight one overriding theme ... unity in diversity.

The images on exhibit, created by both professional and amateur photographers, cover the grounds of fine art images, technical photos and snapshots ... in color, black-and-white, toned and painted.

The subjects captured on camera include: candid and formal photographs of celebrities like Marlene Dietrich, as well as private individuals, sweeping landscapes, haunting seascapes and erotic body forms, spectacular sunsets and dreamy cloud formations, colorful still life, delectable food shots, solitary figures, crowds, children who are simply either at innocent play or kids who unwittingly make political, social and psychological commentary, among others.

In these photographs, various creative and technical methods were employed ... straight shots, digital imaging and manipulation, creative filters, processing and printing, camera formats and image sizes.

While the show is ongoing, the organizer and members of this exhibition are already at work on a second exhibition featuring photographs on a particular theme and to be participated by more photographers and Photo Forum members. (Dominique James)

Early Digital Work (1998 - 2001)

Metropolis, Rosary, Tomato Box

This image and others (Chambers' first digital art pieces, 1998-1999.) work with symmetry and pattern as an art form. Pattern relies upon three characteristics: a unit, repetition, and a system of organization. Symmetry is a fundamental organizing principle in nature and in culture. The analysis of symmetry allows for understanding the organization of a pattern, and provides a means for determining both invariance and change.

The works were exhibited online at Photo Forum Gallery, The Art Bin Gallery, Digital Art Museum.

Public Domain Reconstruction

This reconstruction produces a background of Kinetic Art that takes Abstract Expressionism to another level via digital treatment.

Exhibition: "Red Lines", Dart Gallery, Information Visualization Symposium (IV2004), University of London, London, England, July 14-16, 2004.

Note: Part of the Rhizome Art Base. Founded in 1999, the Rhizome Art Base is an online archive of new media art containing some 1600 art works, and growing. The Art Base encompasses a vast range of projects by artists all over the world that employ materials including software, code, websites, moving image, games and browsers to aesthetic and critical ends.

Streak 16

Seen below is Chambers' "360" piece appropriated through multiple framing to produce a new piece, "Streak 16". Notice its repetitive nature. Begin to move the scroll bars at your discretion. What is interesting about this piece is the fact that change in position and placement seems to break its repetitive nature - creating hybrids of Kinetic Art.

Manipulating "Streak 16" via the scroll bars to create the hybrids takes his piece and yours to another level - "Connective Art". Again, its repetitive nature seems to be broken, but only in the sense of and due to change in position and placement.

Exhibition:

Streak 16, Dart Gallery, Information Visualization Symposium (group show), University of London, London, England, July 16-18, 2003.

Note: Part of the Rhizome Art Base, Founded in 1999, the Rhizome Art Base is an online archive of new media art containing some 1600 art works, and growing. The Art Base encompasses a vast range of projects by artists all over the world that employ materials including software, code, websites, moving image, games and browsers to aesthetic and critical ends.

SWR: TMC Revisited

Chambers revisits his photo documentary project, Southwest of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection through appropriation of four of its images by utilizing frames/marquee (Web mechanics) and 3D software (kinetic) to move the original (conventional/static) project to another level via digital (e) treatment. The inclusion - in a new media way - of African ornaments/symbols breaks the original 2D plane for an unexpected look/view, and adds an additional cultural element.

Note: Part of the Rhizome Art Base. Founded in 1999, the Rhizome Art Base is an online archive of new media art containing some 1600 art works, and growing. The Art Base encompasses a vast range of projects by artists all over the world that employ materials including software, code, websites, moving image, games and browsers to aesthetic and critical ends.

Pixelscapes (2002-2010)

During the early 2000s, Tom R. Chambers began to look at the pixel within the context of Suprematist/Minimalist art. He equated the pixel with the works of non-objective artists like Vasily Kandinsky, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and others. They generated works to establish an abstract visual language of the sublime, pure color, geometric form, deep contemplation and metaphysical pursuit of the truth. These "Pixelscapes“ conform with many of these non-objective artists' works. They are a revelation for him when compared to these non-objective works generated many years before the pixel and Digital Revolution.

JD Jarvis, Art Critic/Artist and coauthor of Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital Artists (ISBN 1-59200-918-2):

"Mr. Chambers has been experimenting for several years with his series of "Pixelscapes" exhibitions. Utilizing the most basic unit of any computer graphic, the single pixel, his "Pixelscapes" serve as colorful pathways into the purely metaphysical aspects of art which, by virtue of presenting so little, leads the viewer to so much in terms of their own emotional content. This visual poetry contains the ironic connection between Modernist philosophy which moved visual art from figurative representational pictures of the physical world into an expressive and emotional world of abstraction; and, the digital realm in which the purely abstract unit of one pixel off - one pixel on, has been utilized to reproduce once again, with breath taking accuracy the physical world. Now, Chambers has shown a path by which this tool, which so often serves hyper-reality, is forced to reveal the abstract soul at its very core."

Stage 1a

First Public Showing

"Pixelscapes: First and Second Generations" exhibition at Levall Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia, April 4-17, 2002.

Stage 1b

These first- and second-generation "Pixelscapes" are tentative in the sense that Chambers had just begun to explore the potential of the pixel as an abstract art form with the notion of their Minimalist genre and relationship to the early Minimalists' and Abstractionists' works.

Catalog

"Pixelscapes: First and Second Generations" (group show), Third Novosibirsk International Contemporary Graphic Biennial 2003, State Picture Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia, September - November, 2003.

Stage 2

IDAA 2003 Installation at The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Australia, March-April, 2003. Chambers' three works (red in color) hang on the panel, vertically, left photograph. He was Executive Committee Member and Juror, IDAA 2003.

Stage 3

"Pixelscapes: Fifth Generation", "aniGma-3", The 3rd Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging & Animation (group show), Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia, April 6 - May 15, 2006.

Stage 4

"Color and the Primordial Pixel" (Abstract) (Paper) (Color and the Primordial Pixel Presentation) (Books Presentation) (Certificate), "Second Russian Congress on Color", The International Conference of the Color Society of Russia, Smolensk, Russia (December 1-5, 2020).

IV-2 2020, Melbourne 24th International Conference Information Visualisation - PART II@Melbourne, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia, 24 - 27 November 2020. (D-ART Gallery)

24th International Symposium Digital Art, and Online Gallery - D-ART - IV2020, Vienna 24th International Conference Information Visualisation - PART I@Vienna, Vienna, Austria, 28 - 31 July 2020. (D-ART Gallery)

Exhibitions

The H Gallery (solo show), Houston, Texas, U.S.A., July 10 - August 9, 2010.

aniGma-3 (group show), The 3rd Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging & Animation, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia, April 6 - May 15, 2006.

Art and Music 2005 (group show), Coves de Canelobre (Caves of Candalabra), Busot, Spain, August 19 - 21, 2005.

IDAA 2005 (group show) (Juror invitation), QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia, July - August, 2005.

IDAA 2005 (group show) (Juror invitation), VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia, June - July, 2005.

IDAA 2005 (group show) (Juror invitation), The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Inveresk, Australia, March - April, 2005.

aniGma-2, The 2d Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging & Animation (group show), Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia, April - May, 2005 .

IDAA 2004 (group show) (Juror invitation), VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia, August - September, 2004.

IDAA 2004 (group show) (Juror invitation), QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia, June 4 - August 15, 2004.

IDAA 2004 (group show) (Juror invitation), The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Inveresk, Australia, April-May, 2004.

InterGraphic (group show), Bishkek International Exhibition of Graphic Art, State Museum of Fine Arts, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, February 27 - March 6, 2004.

Exhibitions

IDAA 2003 (group show) (Juror invitation), VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia, December, 2003.

International Festival of Digital Imaging & Animation (group show), Novosibirsk, Russia, October 18 - 19, 2003.

Third Novosibirsk International Contemporary Graphic Biennial 2003 (group show), State Picture Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia, September - November, 2003.

IDAA 2003 (group show) (Juror invitation), The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Australia, March-April, 2003.

Art Is Everywhere (group show), Boston Cyberarts Festival, Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., April 26 - May 10, 2003.

Digital Content Consortium (DCC) Conference (featured artist; solo show) University of North Carolina-Pembroke, March 28-29, with the exhibition to continue at the UNC Art Department/Media Integration Project through May 15, 2003.

Museum of Contemporary Art (solo show), Solovki (Solovetskie Ostrova/Solovetskie Islands, White Sea), Russia, Summer, 2002.

ArCade-III in Russia (group show) (an international exhibition of computer generated prints), Novosibirsk, Russia (curated by Sue Gollifer, University of Brighton and the London Institute, UK and by Andrey Martynov,

LeVall Art Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia), July 18 - 31, 2002. LeVall Art Gallery (solo show), Novosibirsk, Russia, April 4-17, 2002.

China (2003-2007)

Tom R. Chambers spent four years in China (2003-2007) teaching English/Media-Communications and Digital/New Media Art at Sheng Da College (SDC) (Zhengzhou, Henan Province) and Zhaoqing University (ZU) (Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province), respectively. Image examples follow that show a bit of his coverage throughout this country as a result of his student connections.

The photograph shows Chambers in the field conversing with locals in a village near Zhaoqing University. The young girl is his translator, Shan Shan (Gina). She also translated for many of his digital/new media art classes at the university. This image is one of his favorites out of many taken of him over this four-year period. (Photo by Cho Eunmi.)

Examples of Chambers’ coverage.

Examples of Chambers’ coverage.

Examples of Chambers’ coverage.

The People of Longhu Town, China (2004)

Tom R. Chambers had the opportunity to collaborate with Zhao Zhenhai, a Chinese documentary photographer, by putting together a two-person show, "Zhao/Chambers Joint Photo Exhibition". Zhao's photos cover the past twenty years throughout China, and Chambers' photos are from 2004 under the namesake of "The People of Longhu Town, China". This was the first time in Henan Province, China for a Chinese and American photographer to come together to offer an East/West perspective on the Chinese People and Culture.

Exhibitions: "Focus On Your World - Zhao/Chambers Joint Photo Exhibition" ("The People of Longhu Town, China") (group show: Zhao Zhenhai, Tom R. Chambers and Zhao's photo students), Yellow River College of Technology, Zhengzhou, China, April, 2005; "Zhao/Chambers Joint Photo Exhibition" ("The People of Longhu Town, China") (two-person show: Zhao Zhenhai and Tom R. Chambers), Library Gallery, Sheng Da College, Zhengzhou, China, June, 2004.

Dyer Street Portraiture to Pixelscapes (2005)

Tom R. Chambers was invited by the Fine Arts Department, New Media, Beijing Film Academy (BFA) (Beijing, China) (April 8, 2005) to give a retrospective lecture, "Dyer Street Portraiture to Pixelscapes", to students and faculty. This twenty-five year retrospective took a look at Chambers' evolution from conventional documentary photography to his current work with digital and new media art (Photos by Cho Eun-mi.).

News Release: "Dyer Street Portraiture to Pixelscapes“

Lecture by Tom R. Chambers at the Beijing Film Academy, Beijing, China (April 8, 2005):

Tom R. Chambers, photographer and artist, will give a three-hour lecture at the academy about his 25-year journey from conventional, documentary photography to digital and new media art focusing on his current involvement with Pixelscapes. He will also talk about Focus Gallery, his online gallery for other artists who are working with digital generation and manipulation as an art form, and mention the International Digital Art Awards (IDAA), an Australian-based arts organization for which he serves as an executive committee member, juror and new media director. He is also an advisor for the Academy of Electronic Arts, New Delhi, India.

Chambers has exhibited his photography and art, worldwide. His mixed media and interactive work, "Mother's 45s" (a tribute to his mother and all mothers of the world), was selected through national competition (U.S.A.) for exhibition as a part of the Parents show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A. (1992).

American Photographer magazine listed one of his documentary portraiture projects, "Dyer Street Portraiture" in its Notable Exhibitions section, March, 1986 issue. His documentary portraiture project, "Descendants 350", received a Governor's Proclamation (1986), and it was accepted by the Secretary of State as a part of the Rhode Island State Archives (U.S.A.) (1991). And his documentary project, "Hot City", received a Mayor's Proclamation (Providence, Rhode Island) (1989), and was accepted as part of the City (Providence) Archives.

His documentary portraiture project, "Southwest of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection", was officially opened by the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, and it was accepted as part of the United States Information Services (USIS) Archives, Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa (1995); and his documentary portraiture project, "People to People", was accepted as part of the Kumho Art Foundation Archives, Gwangju, South Korea (1997).

Chambers also completed a three-year tour as an art conservator and curator for the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and as the initiator/instructor of "The McEwen Photographic Studio" for the National Gallery's Art School (1993-1995). He was invited by the gallery to exhibit his photo art project, "Variations on the Dan Mask", officially opened by the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe (1994).

Over the past seven years, Chambers has been working with digital art and new media. Many of his "Pixelscapes" have been shown in the U.S.A., Australia, England, Russia, Philippines and Brazil. A solo show of his "Pixelscapes: Next Generation" was mounted at the LeVall Art Gallery in Novosibirsk, Russia (2002). And this same work was also shown at InterGraphic (Bishkek International Exhibition of Graphic art), State Museum of Fine arts, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Russia (2004), "International Festival of Digital Imaging & Animation", Novosibirsk, Russia (2003), "Third Novosibirsk International Contemporary Graphic Biennial 2003", State Picture Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia (2003), Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (as a part of "Art Is Everywhere", Boston Cyberarts Festival) (2003), "Digital Content Consortium (DCC) Conference", University of North Carolina-Pembroke, U.S.A. (2003), Museum of Contemporary Art, Solovki (Solovetskie Ostrova/Solovetskie Islands, White Sea), Russia, (Summer, 2002), "International Exhibition of Computer Generated Prints", Novosibirsk, Russia (curated by Sue Gollifer, University of Brighton and the London Institute, UK and by Andrey Martynov, LeVall Art Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia) (2002). His "Pixelscapes: Third Generation" were shown as part of the "2003 IDAA" at VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia, December (2003), and his "Pixelscapes: Fourth Generation" were shown as part of the "2004 IDAA" at The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Inveresk, Australia (2004), QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia (2004) and VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia (2004).

He has also shown his "Shift Series" (a derivative of "Pixelscapes") as part of "Digital Showcase 15", Austin Museum of Digital Art, Austin, Texas, U.S.A. (2002) and "Scan Series" (a derivative of "Pixelscapes") as part of "Glass Membrane: Scanner to Screen", Digital Studio, UCR/California Museum of Photography, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.(2002). Other new media work - "Streak 16", "Red Lines" and "Dot to Dot" - have been show as part of the "Information Visualization Symposium (IV2003/IV2004)", Dart Gallery, University of London, London, England (2003/2004).

Chambers is on the Faculty for Photo-Seminars.com. His Documentary portraiture lesson is featured at this online site and others. He organized and performed curatorial duties for two hyperlinked photo exhibitions for the PhotoForum membership under the auspices of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT, New York, U.S.A.) (1997).

Reviews re: Chambers' Pixelscapes:

JD Jarvis, Artist and Art Critic:

"The genre of Minimalism makes a good verbal foundation for the work Chambers is exploring. This new generation of work is challenging even those distinctions. In terms of Minimalism these works seem almost elaborate, with strong patterns emerging from the basic structure that is the single pixel. Taken to the next extreme would be a sculptural arrangement of individual squares (pixels) of a single color. As if pixels have liberated themselves, through magnification, from any other context and are now present as individual entities in non-virtual space. The potential for a huge installation referenced as a unit (pattern) from a great distance or seen as individual bits up close has implications for an individual's life within a global community, as well as, commenting on digital communication/art."

Don Archer, Artist and Director, Museum of Computer Art (MOCA):

"Tom R. Chambers' 'Pixelscapes' are studies in digital art that resort exclusively to the pixel itself for visual interest. These are abstract arrangements of pixels in color and may be referenced as exercises in computer Minimalism. With this work and other explorations of computer abstraction, the artist has come a long way from his origins twenty-five years ago as a documentary photographer. His art and art commentary have been widely published on a number of distinguished websites, and his prints shown in numerous exhibitions around the world.“

Contacts:

Wang Honghai, Dean, Fine Art Department, Beijing Film Academy, Beijing, China

Xu Dawei, New Media Tutor, Beijing Film Academy, Beijing, China

Tom R. Chambers, Photographer/Artist

IDAA Exhibition, Beijing, China (2005)

Tom R. Chambers was Executive Committee Member and Juror for the International Digital Art Awards (IDAA) (based in [Australia]), 2003, 2004 and 2005 IDAA exhibitions. He was instrumental in expanding the content of the IDAA to include New Media Art, and served as online New Media Director (2004 - 2005). He was also instrumental in helping to bring the "2005 IDAA Exhibition" to Beijing, China under the auspices of the Beijing Film Academy.

Through networking on both ends - China and Australia - Tom R. Chambers was able to bring the pertinent parties together for this international showing of Digital and New Media Art. The Beijing Film Academy and the IDAA (now affiliated with the QUT Museum in Australia) have now entered into an agreement to make this process an annual event. Through Chambers' affiliation with the IDAA and his connection (conducted a retrospective seminar there, initially) with the Beijing Film Academy, he was also able to involve his art students at Zhaoqing University with those art students at the academy in a collaborative exhibition as a sidebar to the 2005 IDAA Exhibition. This aspect was more meaningful to Chambers in the sense that his students had an opportunity for greater exposure to the Arts at a prestigious gallery and in a metropolitan setting.

The 2005 IDAA Exhibition in China and its consequent annual, cultural exchange between this country and Australia is a credit to Chambers' wherewithal in bringing outside (namely, Western) artistic impetus to the art community (and others) in China for greater understanding and exchange of ideas. Since this exhibition, Xu Da Wei, his dean and another New Media Art professor at the Beijing Film Academy have had the opportunity to travel to Australia and be a part of the 2006 IDAA Exhibition which focused on Chinese Digital and New Media Art.

Visiting Lecturer, Digital/New Media Art, Zhaoqing University, China (2005-2007)

Tom R. Chambers joined the Department to develop and teach a Digital/New Media Art Program. He and his students collaborated with Beijing Film Academy (Beijing, China), Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.), Maine College of Art (Portland, Maine, U.S.A.), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, New York, U.S.A.), National Chengchi University (Taipei, Taiwan), Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.A.) and University of Louisville (Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.) in joint student projects/exhibitions, off- and on-line.

April, 2006 class activities. These second-year art students are participating in INTO THE FUTURE ... a collaborative digital art project with art students at National Chengchi University [Taipei, Taiwan] ... and they are seen along with Visiting Lecturer, Tom R. Chambers discussing their concepts for the project. Chambers' translator, Shan Shan [Gina] is seen to his right.

November, 2005 class activities. These second-year art students are participating in SELF ... a collaborative digital art project with art students at the Maine College of Art [Portland, Maine, U.S.A.] ... and they are seen along with Visiting Lecturer, Tom R. Chambers discussing their concepts for the project. Chambers' translator, Shan Shan [Gina] is seen to his right.

October, 2005 class activities. These third-year art students are participating in RED ... a collaborative digital art project with art students at the Art Institute of Boston [Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.] ... and they are seen along with Visiting Lecturer, Tom R. Chambers discussing their concepts for the project. Chambers' translator, Shan Shan [Gina] is seen to his right.

Student Exhibitions:

CHINA VIEWS - Zhaoqing University, Art Gallery, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (July 3 - 8, 2007).

PRUFROCK'S IMAGES, aniGma-4, Fourth Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia (May 10 - June 10, 2007).

FLASH STORIES - Zhaoqing University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (online, May, 2007 - ) (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).

SELF, Sellars Project Space, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. (March 16 - April 10, 2007).

PRUFROCK'S IMAGES - Zhaoqing University and Wake Forest University, Art Gallery, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (March 15 - 23, 2007).

SELF/SOUL - Zhaoqing University and University of Louisville, Art Gallery, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (December 11 - 25, 2006).

SELF/SOUL - Zhaoqing University and University of Louisville, Rouge Noir Gallery, Allen R. Hite Institute, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky (December 1 - 31, 2006)

PRUFROCK'S IMAGES - Zhaoqing University and Wake Forest University (online, October, 2006 - )

ARTifact - Zhaoqing University (online, July, 2006 - )

INTO THE FUTURE - Zhaoqing University and National Chengchi University, Art Gallery, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (May 16 - 19, 2006)

RED, The Piano Factory Art Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (April - May, 2006)

IMPRESSIONS - Zhaoqing University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (online, April, 2006 - )

RED and SELF - aniGma-2006, The 3d Novosibirsk International Festival/Digital Technologies in Contemporary Art, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia (April 6 - May 15, 2006)

MOMENT - Zhaoqing University, Art Gallery, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (March 20 - 26, 2006)

RED - The Carnival of e-Creativity & Change-agents Conclave (CeC & CaC), India International Centre, New Delhi, India (January 27 - 29, 2006)

SELF - Zhaoqing University and Maine College of Art, Art Gallery, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (December 23 - 26, 2005)

RED - Zhaoqing University and Art Institute of Boston, Art Gallery, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (November 24 - 28, 2005)

Beijing Film Academy, Zhaoqing University (RED), Invited Chinese digital artists (Today Art Gallery, Beijing, China, November 4 - 10, 2005) (in conjunction with the 2005 IDAA Traveling Exhibition)

RED - Zhaoqing University and Art Institute of Boston (online, October, 2005 - ) (Boston Cyberarts)

NMA @ NID (2006)

New Media Art (NMA) at the National Institute of Design (NID) exhibition is a culmination of a three-week workshop for New Media Design graduate students at NID in Ahmedabad, India, July 10-28, 2006. The workshop was conducted by Tom R. Chambers. The no-constraints workshop encouraged self-expression through computer technology within a Fine Arts context.

According to Chambers, "Art created via New Media should follow traditional conventions in the sense of appreciation for existing foundations and their various Art Movements." He has tried to instill this within the workshop process, and an overview of the exhibition sees an emotional component and search for truth that permeate the Fine Arts.

Most of the work on exhibit is time-based or art in motion with some interactivity (Connective Art) and static representation via print. Prabhu's projection of apprehension through Inamdar's take on internal conflict show a surprising maturity of the works on display, particularly since this is the first time for this group of students to pursue self-expression this way. And Chambers feels that they (the students) have avoided "gimmicks" and "trends" that seem to dominate the attempt of making art in a New Media sense. He considers much of New Media that claims to be art to be nothing more than "blogging", a maze of aptitude exercises and over-intellectualization with little to no concern for aesthetics and the emotional state.

NID New Media Design graduate students: Devyani Arya, Shweta Grampurohit, Basangouda Inamdar, Pallavi Kulkarni, Lakshmi Kumar, Ruchira Parihar, Ruta Potnis, Arul Prabhu, Gayatri Sathe, Abhishek Shrivastava and Eva.

Exhibition: NMA@NID, National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, India, July 10-28, 2006.

A video of the NMA@NID exhibition was a part of the "Screening" event at "CeC/CaC 2007", 2nd Carnival of e-Creativity & Change-agents Conclave, February 9-10-11, 2007, New Delhi, India.

Ahmedabad, India (2006)

Tom R. Chambers spent three weeks in Ahmedabad, India teaching a Digital/New Media Arts workshop for graduate students at the National Institute of Design. He also documented the streets in and around the city with the help of some of his students. They were instrumental in "opening doors" via introductions and translations so Chambers could make the photographs. The workshop culminated in the exhibition, NMA@NID.

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Budapest, Hungary (2006)

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My Dear Malevich (2007 -)

These Pixelscapes ... as an homage ... were found within a photograph of Kazimir Malevich (Ukranian-born artist, 1878-1935) via magnification, filter treatment (halftone) and isolation of the pixel(s). Malevich founded the art movement, Suprematism in Moscow, 1913 as a parallel to Constructivism. Suprematism ("supremacy of forms") is a study in abstraction conceived in itself ... non-objective and not related to anything except geometric shapes and colors ... and a precursor to Minimalism.

He states, "Under Suprematism I understand the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth. I took refuge in the square form and exhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a black square on a white field. It is filled with the spirit of nonobjective sensation which pervades everything. This is no empty square, but rather the feeling of non-objectivity.”

This homage is also a confirmation of Chambers' Pixelscapes as Minimalist Art and in keeping with Malevich's Suprematism ... the feeling of non-objectivity ... the creation of a sense of bliss and wonder via abstraction. Chambers' action of looking within the Malevich photo to find the basic component(s) ... pixel(s) is the same action as Malevich looking within himself ... inside the objective world ... for a pure feeling in creative art to find his "Black Square", "Black Cross" and other Suprematist works.

And there's a mathematical parallel between Malevich's primitive square ("Black Square") ... divided into four, then divided into nine ("Black Cross") ... and Chambers' Pixelscapes. The pixel is the most basic component of any computer graphic, and it can be represented by 1 bit (a 1 if the pixel is black, or a 0 if the pixel is white). And filters (tools [e.g., halftone]) in a graphics program like Photoshop produce changes by mathematically modifying pixel values based on the values of neighboring pixels.

Exhibitions

Suprematism Infinity: Reflections, Interpretations, Explorations (Group Show), Atrium Gallery, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York City, New York, U.S.A. Note: Edition 1 of this work was donated to the Russian American Cultural Center (RACC) Art Collection, New York City, December 1, 2015 - January 22, 2016.

Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (two-person show with Max Semakov), CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

Beyond the Borders (The Guest section) (Group Show), Novosibirsk Municipal Center of Fine Arts, Novosibirsk, Russia, November 3 - 21, 2010.

MDM-1(Group Show), Homage: Contemporary Art in Digital Media, Art Institute of California, San Diego, California, U.S.A., September 11 - October 15, 2010.

MDM-1(Group Show), Homage: Contemporary Art in Digital Media, Escondido Arts Partnership Municipal Gallery, Escondido, California, U.S.A., July 9 - August 21, 2010.

Novosibirsk State Art Museum (as a part of the aniGma-4, Fourth Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging), Novosibirsk, Russia, May 10 - June 10, 2007.

Art Gallery, Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, China, April 2-15, 2007.

“My Dear Malevich”, Art Gallery, Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China, April 2-15, 2007.

Review by JD Jarvis, Art Critic/Artist and coauthor of Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital Artists (ISBN 1-59200-918-2) (Note: This review was written for the first exhibition of "My Dear Malevich" at the Art Gallery, Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (April 2 - 15, 2007.)

"Can an exhibition of art be both physical and virtual, a historical yet avant-garde, forward-looking homage with one foot in the current 21st century digital art scene and the other in the rich 20th century history of Modernist art? The answer is, yes, if you are Tom R. Chambers and your base of operations is the Fine Arts Department of Zhaoqing University in the Guangdong Province of China.

For several years now, Mr. Chambers has treated his students at Zhaoqing University and their peers at selected universities ranging from Wake Forest University, the University of Louisville, the Art Institute of Boston, the State Art Museum of Novosibirsk, Russia, Rensselaer Polytechnic in Troy, New York (among others), as well as, anyone with access to the web to a cross cultural mix of student digital art and photography. Based on themes from 'Self/Soul‘, 'Into the Future‘ or the color 'Red‘, these projects are brimming with culture and art. Chambers has infused his students with his own sense of wonder, introspection and a desire to examine and communicate.

Which brings us to one of Tom Chambers' own most recent and personal exhibitions entitled 'My Dear Malevich' on display from April 2 through 15 in the art gallery of Zhaoqing University. This is the physical/virtual part of this exhibit. Wherein we see on the web a presentation of what must be, in real-time and space, a very striking exhibit. Consisting of many, large-size, black and white prints of hard-edged geometric designs, the project is also an homage to the Russian artist who carried earlier Cubist work entirely into the abstract and non-representational. Kazimir Malevich founded the Suprematist art movement in 1915 and opened the door to true non-objectivity in modern art.

This exhibition expands inward (so to speak) from research into the progenitors of Minimalism, an art form in which Mr. Chambers has been experimenting for several years with his series of 'Pixelscapes‘ exhibitions. Utilizing the most basic unit of any computer graphic, the single pixel, his 'Pixelscapes' serve as colorful pathways into the purely metaphysical aspects of art which, by virtue of presenting so little, leads the viewer to so much in terms of their own emotional content.

With 'My Dear Malevich', Chambers describes for the viewer a process by which he travels (via magnification) into a digitized photograph of Malevich and discovers at the singular pixel level arrangements which echo back directly to Malevich's own totally abstract compositions. This process is such an apt metaphor for Malevich's own journey deep with himself, as well as, his discovery of the non-objective soul of art contained within the objective world as to constitute a form of visual poetry.

This visual poetry contains the ironic connection between Modernist philosophy which moved visual art from figurative representational pictures of the physical world into an expressive and emotional world of abstraction; and, the digital realm in which the purely abstract unit of one pixel off - one pixel on, has been utilized to reproduce once again, with breath taking accuracy the physical world. Now, Chambers has shown a path by which this tool, which so often serves hyper-reality, is forced to reveal the abstract soul at its very core. Was Malevich thinking in ‘pixels’ without knowledge of the term and even many decades before the fact of the technology, which utilizes this basic component? His association with Futurism might account for this sort of metaphysical connection.

And so it is that we have the aspect of this exhibition that straddles a whole century of art, from the earliest beginnings of Modern art to the latest developments in the tools by which the newest works are being made. The ground that is covered is immense, but the time between the two virtually disappears in this exhibit. It seems that with 'My Dear Malevich' it is not a matter of what is old (or new) being new (or old) again; but that what is 'old' and 'new' exists simultaneously. That which is 'gone' is also, at the very same time, ever-present."

The following comments were written for the first exhibition of "My Dear Malevich" at the Art Gallery, Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (April 2 - 15, 2007):

Harvey J. Bott, Sculptor (USA):

"JD Jarvis' review is a most essential discourse of not only this historically portentous exhibition but of you and your oeuvre stratagem, an investiture of nearly ineffable wonder that says virtual past-present-future brought to the e-world and now the reality of tangible documentation in a venue that Malevich would have been proud to share with you."

Laurence Gartel (He is considered the "father of the digital art movement", and he has been a pioneer in this field for over 30 years.) (USA):

"What can be said about Pixelscapes? They're beautiful ... DYNAMIC. Like Josef Albers except this work is lyrical. I really like the evolution of the square. Its a movement that reminds me of my movement. I also like the squares that are surrounding your portrait. Does this mean that the artist is the original square? The artist turns into color? Or is it so that the artist turns into art? An interesting transformation. In any case, it is a wonderful journey."

Andrey Martynov, Curator, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk (Russia):

"Chambers' Pixelscapes have been exhibited in Novosibirsk and also at the Solovetsky Monastery. He is working with the idea of a small unit or cell of an image, which shows a fantastical world through print and animation. He will show this new black-and-white series ... ‘My Dear Malevich’ ... at the Fourth Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging at the Novosibirsk State Art Museum in May/June. It will be a pleasure for us to show this series that stems from the Suprematist traditions of the great Malevich.

Kazimir Malevich was a remarkable artist of the 20th century who looked deeply into the philosophical content of images. Chambers uses this same philosophy in his long-term art projects such as 'Pixelscapes'. And what is especially pleasant is that he brings his understanding and knowledge to art students at Zhaoqing University in China who are just beginning their artistic studies."

Christina Lodder, Professor of Art History, University of Saint Andrews, Scotland (Author of Russian Constructivism [ISBN 0-300-03406-7] and Malevich [ISBN 0-7148-3912-4]; Vice President, The Malevich Society) (UK):

"What you are doing looks very exciting."

Mark Amerika, Associate Professor, Dept. of Art and Art History, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado (USA):

"While China itself is going through a kind of postproduction remix phase, I'm interested in the way you are remixing the digitized version of Malevich, as an image, within the traditional context of both gallery and object, while highlighting the pixel as the primary visual element in the making of new work. Congratulations on your show. The documentation of it makes it look very exciting and I am intrigued by it."

Joe Nalven, Cultural Anthropologist, Founder/Editor of Digital Art Guild and coauthor of Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital Artists (ISBN 1-59200-918-2) (USA):

"Kazimir Malevich covers a wide range of styles and color/black-white imaging. Tom R. Chambers has isolated and deepened that side of Malevich's non-representational and devilishly focused square (and what we now see in the pixel).

Malevich's striving to strip away content associations may have been poured into his work, but how a viewer sees these images can be quite otherwise. So, too, Chambers' images. He has created a dialogue running back and forth in time about this very seductive side of making images. Of course, should Chambers continue down this path, what will happen to the pixel analogy when he chances upon Malevich's black circle? I'm sure we will all be delighted."

Shankar Barua, Artist/Musician/Writer/Designer (Founder and Managing Trustee for The Academy of Electronic Arts, creator of "The Idea“ and Director of The Carnival of e-Creativity & Change-agents Conclave) (India):

"As an old believer in the singular importance of Tom R. Chambers' creative explorations with regard to driving a leading-edge stream of evolution of the digital-still-image-as-art into this new millennium, I am absolutely delighted to see him go back to print after the fascinating Pixelscapes diversion, with this stunning new exhibition, 'My Dear Malevich'. Not that I know anything much about fine arts, but in this rising new era of burgeoning empowerment of individuals by technology across all streams of human endeavor, all over the world, when the more popular leading-edges of many creative streams are often about little more than fascination and infatuation with the shiny new baubles of new mediums in themselves, it is important to so manifest and be reminded that high art should certainly derive from, and serve, much deeper folds in the brains of any individual, community and generation."

Istvan Horkay, Artist (Collaborator with Peter Greenaway [film director] on the "Tulse Luper" film series.) (Hungary):

"Your art epitomizes the double meaning of the word: a fragment, an incised part of something already in existence ... and just because of this incision ... is an injury to the finished surface, to the tangle of writing or a finished picture. It is the same and not the same at the same time. Once the signs are scars, then the wounds will tell tales of some non-alleviated history. The post-human art of our era has moved the farthest away from the ideal which reached the calmness of total emptiness by putting instincts to silence ... consequently, your Pixelcapes."

Allan Revich, Artist and Director of Digital Salon (USA):

"Tom R. Chambers is blessed with an uncanny ability to marry high-concept with visual beauty. He demonstrates his ability to do so in his 'My Dear Malevich' exhibition, where he riffs on the work of the Suprematist artist, Kazimir Malevich, to create wonderfully intriguing Pixelscapes. Chambers' Pixelscapes merge the analog and digital worlds, and merge the past with the present to create a new kind of imagery that brings wall-based visual art into the 21st century. His work is interesting to think about, and pleasant to look at. What more can we ask for from the art on our walls?"

Michael Takeo Magruder, New Media Artist and Researcher, King's Visualisation Lab, King's College London, London, England (UK):

"I very much enjoy the critical, analytical and aesthetic nature of the artwork. As you are aware, much of my own work is an exploration of the digitally minimal and the fundamental structures that comprise media technology - so I feel well-placed to understand and comment on your artistic concerns in this area. I feel that many contemporary artists working in New Media utilize the pixel without understanding its core essence in terms of both technology that creates it and the connections it has to the art historical past. I did not have such negative feelings when considering this body of work. I find the premise of the work is a relevant extension of the Suprematism and Minimalism art movements of the 20th century, in which you revisit critical explorations from the past and augment your investigations with present day technologies and context."

Joseph Havel, Sculptor (Director of The Glassell School of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) (USA):

"The work is very interesting."

Harold Olejarz, Artist and Art Educator at Eisenhower Middle School (U.S. Department of Education National Blue Ribbon School) (USA):

"At the beginning of the 20th century Kazimir Malevich was at the forefront of a revolution in art. His work took chances and explored new directions in representation. Malevich was an experimenter, pushing art to the edges.

Today, at the beginning of the 21st Century, Tom R. Chambers' work bridges 100 years of art history and creates connections between his own ground-breaking work as a digital artist and the ground-breaking work of Malevich. Chambers' 'Pixelscapes' explore issues of digital representation as well as refer back to the seminal dialog about representation that Malevich and his contemporaries initiated. Look beneath the elegant simplicity of the art of Malevich and Chambers and you will find the essential building blocks of art. Look closely at Chambers' images and you will find the building blocks of today's digital revolution."

Bruce Hanks, Manager, University of Winnipeg Instructional Network, Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CDDL), The University of Winnipeg (Canada):

“ 'Black Square' (1915), consisting of nothing more than a black square on a white field ... one of Kazimir Malevich's earliest works into Suprematism ... becomes the starting point, ninety two years later, for an exhibition by Tom R. Chambers simply titled 'My Dear Malevich'.

This is not necessarily new work for Chambers. In 2000 he explored the pixel in what has become his ongoing exploration under the namesake of 'Pixelscapes' (A pixel (picture element) being a single point in a graphic image, an abstract sample.). In his article, 'The pixel as Minimalist Art' reference is made to Malevich's 'Black Square' (1915) and 'Black Cross' (1923). What is new about 'My Dear Malevich', is Chambers removing the pixel from the screen and placing it on a gallery wall as large digital images, a transfer that becomes an all at once opportunity to see the totality of the work.

To enter a space and see larger than life pixels displayed one after the other in all their complex diversity allows for a truly meditative experience. What is more interesting is Chambers' starting point for the project, a photograph of Malevich in which he turned the telescope around and concentrated on a small area of the image. By enlarging this one small area, the pixels become a vast universe of the non-objective out of which emerged the exhibition 'My Dear Malevich'."

Claude Bossett, Artist (Unveiled a tribute to the pixel for its 50th Birthday [2004] by painting a 60 cm x 60 cm blue square on a 100 cm x 140 cm canvas.) (Austria):

"A refreshing extrapolation of the pixel, and it appears to be well accepted (balanced) all around.“

Peter Ciccariello, Artist (USA):

"Fascinating project - image reduced to its fundamental core, pointing with delicious lyricism to the singularity of the source.“

Xu Hongbo, Art Professor, Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University (China):

"Malevich is a traditional resource of art. Chambers uses it like a Chinese Artist uses the traditional form of brush painting. The abstract works of Malevich were studied by Chinese artists 10 to 15 years ago. Why did this study cease? I think because this kind of art doesn't have Chinese roots. We can become enlightened again through Chambers' exhibition. Most contemporary Chinese artists do not address this form with ease like their predecessors."

Don Archer, Director, Museum Of Computer Art (MOCA) (USA):

"Tom R. Chambers has been an iconoclastic digital artist and passionate teacher of digital art for many years. He is most recently visiting lecturer on digital and new media art and digital photography in the Fine Arts Department of Zhaoqing University in Zhaoqing, China. His own art is a celebration of digital abstraction and reductionism in a long series of works that he calls 'Pixelscapes'. His most recent series is called 'My Dear Malevich' and is a tribute to the celebrated Ukranian-born artist Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) who was founder of Suprematism, a non-representational art that featured geometric forms and shapes. These new images are a confirmation of Chambers' dedication to minimalist art and to the pixel, in all its potential and limitations."

Wu Nan, Art Professor, Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University (China):

"Tom R. Chambers is a blend of the West and the East ... frank and charming with a disposition of an Eastern writer ... and this combination seems consistent when viewing his early photographic works, which are full of humanity, morality and caring.

His recent creative work, 'My Dear Malevich' has a very different connotation: bright and fashionable, which conjures up skin texture within a multi-colored grid or graph. The meaning is manifested within a Western world's characteristics of materialism, public display and desire with curious, affective tonal range and realm of imagination ... it's beckoning.

Chambers seems to want to elucidate a subject ... make a significant attempt at clarifying a notion. His appreciation of Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist artwork is only a way or an excuse to present an artistic trend through iconography that borders on 'religion'. The 'Pixelscapes' that comprise the project represent a collective expression.

The subtle grays, blacks and whites combined with the cross symbol remind us of a certain 'awe'. The artworks transmit a solemnity and moving atmosphere. The expression is direct and effective, which is the most obvious characteristic of contemporary art."

Luca LUNK Leggero, New Media Artist (Creator of ”How to make a perfect Malevich using only basic HTML code”) (Italy):

"I really like 'My Dear Malevich'. I think the concept behind 'Pixelscapes' is fascinating. It is also interesting that Malevich is important for new media/net artists."

“My Dear Malevich”, Novosibirsk State Art Museum (as a part of the aniGma-4, Fourth Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging), Novosibirsk, Russia, May 10 - June 10, 2007.

Teacher, Technology, Digital/New Media Art, RYSS, Houston, Texas (2007-2013)

Tom R. Chambers taught Technology for Raul Yzaguirre School For Success (charter) in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. (2007-2013). He also taught and advised Digital Photography, Digital/New Media Art and Broadcasting.

DA_7_8_RYSS, 2008-2009 - Middle school students (7th and 8th grade) at Raul Yzaguirre School For Success [RYSS], Houston, Texas, U.S.A. participated in a classroom assignment involving GIMP 2 (Photoshop equivalent) photo software and vocabulary building through word identification/meaning via the Internet.

The students were given Grade 7 and 8 Language Arts (TEKS/TAKS) words to research the meaning of online then translate those meanings in photo software as Digital Art. As a result, vocabulary enhancement came to the forefront with acquired skills of manipulating photographs ... utilizing various tools and filters within the software.

This cognitive and creative process placed the students in an environment of hands-on with photo software and the requirement of researching the word meanings to translate them into Digital Art through visualization. Digital Artists abound in all sectors as a part of this Digital Revolution we find ourselves a part of these days, which means this classroom process was also vocational in terms of building graphics software skills. Another interesting aspect to this project/process is the fact that the students took the vocabulary building assignments in stride to be able to visualize their word meanings as art and in this case, Digital Art.

Photographs for the manipulations were downloaded from the Internet strictly for educational purposes. Note: this classroom assignment (lesson plan) was found to be exemplary and has been included in the National Lesson Plan Library at Digital Wish.

Chambers’ Statement:

"I believe the most important aspect of this digital art project at RYSS and its showcasing is the fact that a classroom assignment such as this ... or any other ... has transcended the confines of the room and the school system to provide impact or stimulus within the community.

This impact or stimulus is a realization for the students who participated, their families, their school system members and community members that what happens in the classroom can also be transferred to outside situations within a real world context.

The classroom assignment and its end result have moved from the student's notebook to a product on display for public consumption and evaluation. This fact indicates to the student that what he/she does can have more meaning within a wider setting. And because of this, it builds greater confidence levels to continue and in parallel with everyday activities in society."

Tom Series (2011-2022)

Tom R. Chambers utilizes the self-portrait to project his life experiences. His portrait remains constant with the experience (situation) indicated as a change or flux in the image. The accompanying text details his experience with the inclusion of links to the Internet for additional information. "Tom Series" is not only an artwork about Chambers' life - biography (visual/textual) - but also a reference tool, a study of history through his existence.

The constancy of the same portrait (Chambers' image) indicates a human being's existence within a world/an environment that's ever influencing and changing the psyche and at some point in time - later (twilight) years for this individual, the psyche begins to take control and evaluate the process.

Viewers of the same generation will probably begin to travel down their own personal memory lanes that may or may not cross his own. As they look at a particular image and read the text of "Tom Series", they may very well have had a similar to almost same experience. If not, they might begin to think about what they were doing during that particular time period when he was involved in his particular life activity and even compare their and Chambers' activities - more or less fortunate, happier or unhappier - and other situational aspects that determine the human condition. And for particular viewers, their life experiences might weave in and out of his, creating a subliminal connection - similar to the helix that equates all life at the biochemical level.

Viewers of today's generation - the young generation - will get a hint of what has come before them and might be ahead of them in an immediate sense. "Tom Series" becomes a litmus test for this generation to begin to gauge their own lives - an indicator of pitfalls to avoid and opportunities to take advantage of - a lifeline (in palmistry) to begin to evaluate their own in a projected sense and as it might relate to their parents'/grandparents' lives. The project might even bring the young generation closer to their parents/grandparents, and they (younger generation) might want to know more about them (parents/grandparents) and the older generation, generally.

Tom Series

A satellite photo (courtesy of USGS, 2005) of Chambers' hometown (Nocona, Texas, U.S.A.) is superimposed onto his face to indicate that he and his hometown are inseparable even though commonality has been lost over the years due to Chambers' living away and lifestyle. He attended first/fourth grades there with occasional visits during the summer season.

When he thinks of his hometown ... a small leather goods, cattle ranching, and farming community of about 3000 people ... he has fond memories, and he regrets that he hasn't visited more often. His grandparents, parents, brother and other family members are buried there, and he hopes this area will be his last resting place as well.

Tom Series

The classic Indian head TV test pattern is superimposed ... similar to war paint ... onto Chambers' face to indicate programming influence on his childhood and adolescence (1950s - 1960s). Chambers is a Baby Boomer ... born in 1947 ... and part of the first generation to be nurtured and entertained by the tube. The test pattern became an industry standard, and it was originally developed by RCA.

Chambers remembers his father ... and his grandfather ... grappling with the TV remote control that came out in the 1950s and the occasional arguing between his mother and father over which program to watch. He fondly remembers his mother having to sit in front of the television in the mornings and afternoons to watch her soap operas. And when his father came home after work, it was couch and TV time before and after dinner.

Tom Series

A reconnaissance photo (#5; completed SA-2 missile site showing characteristic Star of David pattern; courtesy of the Dino A. Brugioni Collection at The National Security Archive, The George Washington University) is superimposed onto Chambers' face to indicate the stressful nature of his experience in 1962 because of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

At the time and particularly on October 22 when President John F. Kennedy informed the world that the Soviet Union was building secret missile bases in Cuba, Chambers was living precariously close to missile silos in the Lincoln, Nebraska area (His father worked on the silos.) ... more than likely a prime target or at least it felt that way for him as a fifteen-year old.

The Thirteen Days (now a movie) of confrontation ... on the brink of a nuclear holocaust ... between America and the Soviet Union passed with the removal of the missiles from Cuba.

Exhibitions:

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom), The FACE (group show) (updated version, 110 works. 45 artists. 22 countries), City Art Center (The Center of Culture/CK-19), Novosibirsk, Russia, April 22 - May 29, 2022.

(First Love Tom, Apple Tom, Apollo Tom), Face to Face (group show), Modern Fine Arts Museum, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, August 18, 2017.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Tolijatti State Art Museum, Russia, October - December, 2015.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Perm State Art Gallery, Russia, May - July, 2015.

(Tube Tom), The Selfie Show: An Art Exhibition of Self-portraits (group show), Museum of New Art, Troy, Michigan, U.S.A., May - June, 2015.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Villa Ichon, Bremen, Germany, November - December, 2014.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Samara State Art Museum, Russia, May - July, 2014.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), SFA Galleries, Nacogdoches, Texas, U.S.A., September - October, 2013.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Photo Festival, Arezzo, Italy, September - October, 2012.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Manomentr Gallery, Moscow, Russia, February, 2012.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Eumeria Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, December 12 - 17, 2011.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Rosphoto Exhibition Centre for Photography, St. Petersburg, Russia, November 25 - December 1, 2011.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Gallery, American University of Paris, Paris, France, October 11 - November 7, 2011.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Metenkov Museum of photography, Ekaterinburg, Russia, August 17 - September 18, 2011.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Chelyabinsk Museum of arts, Chelyabinsk, Russia, July 5 - August 9, 2011.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Roba Gallery, Omsk, Russia, June 18 - July 6, 2011.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Krasnoyarsk cultural Museum Centre, Russia, March 31 - May 22, 2011.

(Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom), The FACE (group show), Novosibirsk State Museum of Local History, Novosibirsk, Russia, February 16 - March 14, 2011.

(China Tom, Tao Tom, Hometown Tom, AHS Tom [instructor invitation]), SELF/SOUL (Joint Student Exhibition, Zhaoqing University and University of Louisville[Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.]) (group show), Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, China, December 1 - 25, 2006

(China Tom, Tao Tom, Hometown Tom, Target Tom), Faculty Exhibition (group show), Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, China, November 25 - December 1, 2006.

Installation examples of "Tom Series" in Russia as a part of "The Face: The Evolution of Portrait Photography" curated by Andrey Martynov:

Tom Series book purchased by the Hilton M. Briggs Library, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota, U.S.A.

Term paper on Tom R. Chambers (Art Appreciation for Honors; a 100-level, lower division class, where students have chosen an artist on the theme of interconnectivity, and analyzed a selection of works.) by Peter DeGroot, Art student of Dr. Leda Cempellin, Assistant Professor, History of Art, Department of Visual Arts, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota, U.S.A., 2009.

At the Movies: 1952-1969 (2012)

Tom R. Chambers creates an installation piece for large-scale projection. The video spans 18 years (1952-1969; kindergarten through college) via movie titles that begin to paint/stroke an abstraction conjuring up another title for the piece: "Title Stroke". This time period involves the movies Chambers can actually recall watching (at a theater or drive-in) with his parents, friends, and alone.

At the Movies: 1952-1969 - YouTube

Chambers is an "only child", so most to all of his time was their (parents') time, particularly his mother's, and when they went to the movies, he tagged along - no babysitter. Consequently, many of the movies that he recalls are of the mature version. Historically speaking, many people of his age probably "traveled" a similar course with their movie viewing. So, "At the Movies: 1952-1969" is not only about his past, but possibly yours as well.

Panhandle Circle-square (2014)

Tom R. Chambers works with the crop-circle configurations in the Texas Panhandle (Google Earth).

Scholars during the Medieval Period believed that there was something "divine" or "perfect" about the circle. The farmers of today in the Texas Panhandle believe in the practicality and efficiency of the circle via the utilization of center pivot irrigation of their crops.

The "Earth canvases" (Found Art) are a testament to the farmers' intuitive nature and mathematical skill of working with the dynamics of the circle and within the confines of a square (plot of land) to irrigate their crops. What's interesting is when these circle-square configurations are viewed as aerial landscapes (similar to "Aeropaintings" ["Futurism"]), they rival the works of some non-objective artists.

The artist Kazimir Malevich (founder of Suprematism [non-objective approach to making art]) viewed the aerial landscape as a new and radical paradigm in the art of the Twentieth Century. In his mind, aerial photography had created a broad change in consciousness. Much of his work was inspired by or derived from aerial landscapes. (Wp)

Many of the artists in Russia became Constructivists believing that art was life itself. They thought that the artist must become a technician, learning to use the tools and materials of modern production. Again what's interesting about the aerial (satellite) photographs (courtesy of Google Earth) is that the farmers as technicians with their tools and materials of modern production have become artists (non-objective/geometric abstractionist).

Kandinsky, one of the forerunners of pure non-objective painting, was among the first modern artists to explore this geometric approach. As mentioned, Malevich, Mondrian and others embraced this approach. Kandinsky claimed that the circle was the most peaceful shape, and it represented the human soul. (Wp)

So, "Panhandle Circle-square" can be viewed as geometric, non-representational or non-objective art. It includes squares, circles and other "Land Art" (inverse), along with colors. As a form of "aeropainting", it offers changes in perspective that constitute new realities that have nothing to do with a terrestrial perspective. And in the words of the Futurist Movement (1929 Manifesto), the "Earth canvases" are a "vision of Cosmic projection, a reverie of aerial fantasy, and an aeronautical documentary (mechanistic)."

Black Square Interpretations (2014 -)

Red Sweep Black Square

Stills from the video: Red Sweep Black Square – YouTube are seen.

In the video, the sweeping of the color red acknowledges "Red Square" as a Suprematist figure, but there is always a return to the true icon, "Black Square" for Suprematism.

Exhibitions:

Suprematism Infinity: Reflections, Interpretations, Explorations (group show), Atrium Gallery, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York City, New York, U.S.A. Note: Edition 1 of this work was donated to the Russian American Cultural Center (RACC) Art Collection, New York City, December 1, 2015 - January 22, 2016.

Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (two-person show with Max Semakov), CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" and "Red Square“ (both exhibited in 1915) approximate being one and the same, but Malevich considered his "Black Square" to be the true icon - its zero form - for Suprematism. In Malevich's system, the movement from black-and-white Suprematism to colored and finally to white Suprematism was indicated by three squares: a black, a red, and a white one. (Vitebsk, Aleksandra Shatskikh, 2007 [1917-1922])

The first time Malevich exhibited his "Red Square", in 1915, it was subtitled "Pictorial Realism of a Peasant in Two Dimensions". During the Vitebsk years, the representation of the "Red Square" was politicized. Lazar Lissitzky had a hand in this Bolshevization of the Suprematist figure. He turned the "Red Square" into the Unovis seal. However, Malevich and all the other Suprematist-Unovis members deemed the "Black Square" to be the true symbol of Unovis. (Vitebsk, Aleksandra Shatskikh, 2007 [1917-1922])

Black Square Embellished

This project reflects Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" after glitch treatment. The treatment is the embellishment in each case, and it could be argued that it is also the defacement of the same. Is this act of changing the appearance or surface of "Black Square" for better or worse, or does it matter? Would Malevich disapprove of these digital renditions since he once stated, "there's nothing more after "Black Square"?

Things evolve, and opinions change, and Chambers considers "Black Square Embellished" an evolution of sorts ... a move from Malevich's Suprematism towards Neo-Suprematism. There are those out there who might even interpret these pieces as Anti-Suprematism.

Malevich's "Black Square" changed the interpretation of art ... "Black Square Embellished" changes the interpretation of "Black Square".

Exhibition:

"Black Square Embellished" ("Black Square Interpretations") (group show), D-Art Gallery (July 2019 - June 2020), 23rd International Information Visualization Conference, University of Paris, Paris, France (July 2-5, 2019) and 16th International Conference Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualization Conference, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia (July 16-19). Both conferences organized in London, England.

Beyond Black Square

Stills from the video, Beyond Black Square - YouTube are seen.

The video moves Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" towards Neosuprematism. It also simulates the evolution of the bar code system. 

Kazimir Malevich:

"This was no 'empty square' which I had exhibited but rather the feeling of non-objectivity. I realized that the 'thing' and the 'concept' were substituted for feeling and understood the falsity of the world of will and idea. Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art which, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of 'things'. But the nature and meaning of artistic creation continue to be misunderstood, as does the nature of creative work in general, because feeling, after all, is always and everywhere the one and only source of every creation. The emotions which are kindled in the human being are stronger than the human being himself - they must at all costs find an outlet, they must take on overt form, they must be communicated or put to work.“

Tom R. Chambers:

"Moving Malevich's 'Black Square' beyond - particularly in kinetic form - compounds the feeling of non-objectivity. The 'Black Square' becomes the void in piecemeal fashion releasing those emotions that he refers to as being 'kindled in the human being' to even a higher degree. They have indeed 'found an outlet' and 'taken on overt form' - Neosuprematism.“

Exhibition:

Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (two-person show with Max Semakov), CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

Black Square Unmasked

According to Kazimir Malevich the originator of Suprematism and creator of "Black Square”: "To the Suprematist, the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth." 

Suprematism represents an anti-materialist, anti-utilitarian philosophy. Malevich continues to state, "Art no longer cares to serve the state and religion, it no longer wishes to illustrate the history of manners, it wants to have nothing further to do with the object, as such, and believes that it can exist, in and for itself, without 'things' (that is, the "time-tested well-spring of life")." (Part II of The Non-Objective World, 1927)

To unmask "Black Square" is to remove this equalizer of all art movements, to reveal such (art movements) as insignificant in the mind of Malevich on behalf of Suprematism. The only true reality for Malevich - absolute non-objectivity. He states, "A blissful sense of liberating non-objectivity drew me forth into a 'desert', where nothing is real except feeling." (Part II of The Non-Objective World, 1927)

Exhibition:

Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (two-person show with Max Semakov), CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

Black Square Transformations

Stills from the video, Black Square Transformations – YouTube are seen.

Kinetic forms are generated within Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" zone. They are in keeping with some of his Suprematist forms that seem to float and simulate aerial views. Malevich states: "The square changes and creates new forms, the elements of which can be classified in one way or another depending upon the feeling which gave rise to them.“

Exhibition:

Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (two-person show with Max Semakov), CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

Black Square Disrupted

In 1923, Kazimir Malevich was appointed director of Petrograd State Institute of Artistic Culture. He painted his "Black Cross" the same year. The institute was forced to close -DISRUPTED - in 1926 after a Communist party newspaper called it "a government-supported monastery" rife with "counterrevolutionary sermonizing and artistic debauchery." 

The Soviet state was by then heavily promoting a politically sustainable style of art called Socialist Realism - a style Malevich had spent his entire career repudiating. Malevich's assumption that a shifting in the attitudes of the Soviet authorities toward the modernist art movement would take place after the death of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky's fall from power was proven correct in a couple of years, when the Stalinist regime turned against forms of abstraction, considering them a type of "bourgeois" art, that could not express social realities. As a consequence, many of his works were confiscated and he was banned from creating and exhibiting similar art.

Critics derided Malevich's art as "a negation of everything good and pure: love of life and love of nature." The Westernizer artist and art historian Alexandre Benois was one such critic. Malevich responded that art can advance and develop for art's sake alone, saying, "Art does not need us, and it never did". (Wp)

A transformation tool is utilized in GIMP (graphic Arts software) to create the disruptions utilizing Kazimir Malevich's statement - paragraph by paragraph - about Suprematism. The disruptions are also seen as the "collective nature" of humanity as it relates to revolution. They also conjure up the "Cosmos". Aleksandra Shatskikh states:

"Kazimir Malevich's work tells a compelling story about the dream of a new social order, the struggle of revolutionary ideals and the power of art itself. Central to this was his prescient fascination with Outer Space, the Cosmos and man's destiny to explore it. At one point, he kept a telescope in his pocket."

A transformation tool is utilized in GIMP (graphic Arts software) to create the disruptions utilizing Kazimir Malevich's statement - paragraph by paragraph - about Suprematism. The disruptions are also seen as the "collective nature" of humanity as it relates to revolution. They also conjure up the "Cosmos".

Black Square Space

Images of the Universe (courtesy of HubbleSite [http://hubblesite.org]) are utilized in combination with Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" to confirm his (Malevich) interest in Astronomy and connection of his Suprematist work with the Universe. The "Space" images have been pixelated to show abstractions - configurations of pixels - running throughout the "Black Square" and beyond ("white abyss"). Malevich's "Black Square" becomes monolithic/monumental. Malevich called himself, "President of s(S)pace".

Exhibition:

International Digital Art Gallery (D-ART) for the 22nd International Conference on Information Visualization & 15th Conference Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualization, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy, July 10-13, 2018. Organized in London, England.

According to "The Cosmos and the Canvas", Aleksandra Shatskikh, Malevich at Tate Modern, July 30, 2014 (Tate Etc., Issue 31, Summer 2014):

Kazimir Malevich called his abstract compositions Suprematism, which in its first stage meant the dominance of color energy and its transformations in painting. For him, the life of color as such was linked to the Universe: objectless color generated the sensation of its objectless, imageless being. According to him, the "white abyss" of the background, whose whiteness was conditioned by the extreme incandescence of energetic tension in the Universe, was the manifestation of s(S)pace on Suprematist canvases. In late 1917 the painted elements became increasingly dynamic. Their sharp edges cut into the whiteness, and as the concentration of colour decreases, the boundary between figure and background disappears. Malevich called this process "dissolution", a term with Cosmic connotations: "The Cosmos is dissolution. The Earth is a small splitting." Through the dissolution of color by the "white abyss" in Suprematism, the phenomenon of non-material time, linked to non-figurative space, appeared more often. In a 1918 poem, Malevich developed this idea:

"Each shape has a real type of time and the coloration of colors is the power of the time's oscillation, time's movement creates shape while simultaneously coloring it and consequently the speed of time can be defined by color."

In his text, Malevich lays out visionary ideas of amazing heuristic power, while touching on a sphere seemingly removed from art - technology:

"The Suprematist machine, if it can be put that way, will be single-purposed and have no attachments. A bar alloyed with all the elements, like the Earthly sphere, will bear the life of perfections, so that each constructed Suprematist body will be included in Nature's natural organisation and will form a new sputnik; it is merely a matter of finding the relationship between the two bodies racing in s(S)pace. A new sputnik can be built between Earth and Moon, a Suprematist sputnik equipped with all the elements that moves in an orbit, forming its own new path."

Black Square Merge: Nature

The premise behind "Black Square Merge: Nature" becomes one of homage a second time - first, "My Dear Malevich" - by utilizing photographs of nature to explore at the pixel level - transformation into aesthetic fields of "Pixelscapes" via the merge of Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" - to rekindle his thoughts about creation.

He states, "No phenomenon is mortal, and this means not only the body but the idea as well, a symbol that one is eternally reincarnated in another form which actually exists in the conscious and unconscious person." In his book, The Non-Objective World, Malevich describes the inspiration for his "Black Square". He states, "I felt only night within me, and it was then that I conceived the new art, which I called Suprematism." 

"Black Square Merge: Nature" represents this reincarnation that he talks about; and the loss of color of the pixels due to the merge of the color photograph with his "Black Square" conjures up his feelings of "night within me" and their consequent creation of the new art, Suprematism.

Exhibition:

Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (two-person show with Max Semakov), CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

Review by JD Jarvis, Art Critic/Artist and coauthor of Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital Artists (ISBN 1-59200-918-2) [USA]:

“His work in this vein draws our attention to the visual singularity that makes up everything we see in the digital universe. Since the pixel equates to what we call a 'subatomic particle' within our physical universe, Chambers' work engages us directly with the feeling that the Russian Suprematist described as the non-objective spirit that pervades everything and pays due homage their belief in the ability of Abstraction to convey 'the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art'. Indeed, an earlier edition within this long series of work explored the visual meaning behind the works and words of Suprematist painter and theorist Kazimir Malevich.

In this latest edition of images and prints Chambers seeks to metaphorically merge inner and outer worlds by presenting photorealistic nature as it transitions into digital abstraction at the pixel level. 'Black Square Merge: Nature' is precisely what it says it is. We see, almost in cinematic form the movement from a picture of reality to a picture of pure abstraction. What this viewer finds most interesting is that area of transition between these absolutes. It satisfies me that in this grey area where nature begins to break down and abstraction appears to be taking hold that we find the greatest latitude and possibility for creative energy.

I was overcome, at first, by the sheer number of images in this edition, but when I saw on my computer screen a thumbnail of a large number of these works gathered on a single page I realized that each image is like a jewel and that the effect will be quite wonderful when the physical prints of these images are finally displayed back in the realm of physical reality. In such a display we will find ourselves inside that journey that Malevich described and which Tom R. Chambers so elegantly materializes."

Black Square Cross Revolution

Stills are seen from the video, Black Square Cross Revolution that contrasts the Suprematist works of Kazimir Malevich with the Russian Revolution of 1917.

In 1915, Kazimir Malevich laid down the foundations of Suprematism when he published his manifesto, From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Painterly Realism. In 1915/1916 he worked with other Suprematist artists in a peasant/artisan co-operative in Skoptsi and Verbovka village. Malevich exhibited his first "Black Square" at the "Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10" in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) in 1915. A black square placed against the sun appeared for the first time in the 1913 scenery designs for the Futurist opera, "Victory over the Sun".

After the October Revolution (1917), Malevich became a member of the Collegium on the Arts of Narkompros, the Commission for the Protection of Monuments and the Museums Commission (all from 1918/1919). He taught at the Vitebsk Practical Art School in the USSR (now part of Belarus) (1919/1922), the Leningrad Academy of Arts (1922/1927), the Kiev State Art Institute (1927/1929), and the House of the Arts in Leningrad (1930). He wrote the book, The World as Non-Objectivity, which was published in Munich in 1926 and translated into English in 1959. In it, he outlines his Suprematist theories.

In 1923, Malevich was appointed director of Petrograd State Institute of Artistic Culture. He painted his "Black Cross" the same year. The institute was forced to close in 1926 after a Communist party newspaper called it "a government-supported monastery" rife with "counterrevolutionary sermonizing and artistic debauchery." The Soviet state was by then heavily promoting a politically sustainable style of art called Socialist Realism - a style Malevich had spent his entire career repudiating.

Malevich's assumption that a shifting in the attitudes of the Soviet authorities toward the modernist art movement would take place after the death of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky's fall from power was proven correct in a couple of years, when the Stalinist regime turned against forms of abstraction, considering them a type of "bourgeois" art, that could not express social realities. As a consequence, many of his works were confiscated and he was banned from creating and exhibiting similar art.

Critics derided Malevich's art as "a negation of everything good and pure: love of life and love of nature." The Westernizer artist and art historian Alexandre Benois was one such critic. Malevich responded that art can advance and develop for art's sake alone, saying that "Art does not need us, and it never did". (Wp)

Bourgeois Black Square

Stills are seen from the video, Bourgeois Black Square re: the Stalinist regime that turned against forms of abstraction, considering them a type of "bourgeois" art, that could not express social realities. Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" was considered such, and many of his works were confiscated. He was also banned from creating and exhibiting similar art.

Critics of the regime spoke of Malevich and his art with contempt stating that his work was "a negation of everything good and pure, love of life and love of nature." Malevich responded that art can advance and develop for art's sake alone, saying, "Art does not need us, and it never did," thus the premise for this video. (Wp)

Black Square Desecration

Stills from the video, Black Square Desecration are seen.

Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" (1915) receives glitch treatment - perceived as "desecration" - and perhaps embraced by this Suprematist if ​he were alive today. Suprematism is based upon "the supremacy of pure artistic feeling" (sensation), and the kinetic glitch treatment ​enhances these emotions via pixel reconfigurations, the introduction of color fields and movement. The sound component complements the ​feeling. This video piece could be viewed as Neo-Suprematism.

Official Selection for Viewing:

Experimental Animation and Video Art Program, LINOLEUM International Contemporary Animation and Media-Art Festival, Ukraine, September ​28 - October 1, 2017.

Online art residency at St. Petersburg Art Residency (Russia).

Up Close - 9/11 Memorial (NYC) (2015)

Tom R. Chambers documented the 9/11 Memorial in New York City (NYC) as closure to the guilt he felt when this tragedy happened on September 11, 2001. He was teaching in South Korea, and he felt as if there was nothing he could do since he was so far away from the events in his homeland. A sense of guilt and depression set in.

When he returned to the United States several years later, the memorial "beckoned" him to make amends for his absence from the country. He did so with this project that looks at the memorial fountain in a very "up close and personal" way. The coverage also treats the fountain as Abstract Art.

Chambers states, "Let the water fall - let the water flow in memory of those who perished."

My Dear Malevich, Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (2015)

Tom R. Chambers and Max Semakov/MiMs Art Group come together to pay tribute to Kazimir Malevich through a series of artworks that interpret his "Black Square", and explore Suprematism.

Chambers is based in Houston, Texas, and Semakov is based in Moscow, Russia, which moves this collaboration to a higher plane of exchange between the citizenry of two countries - America and Russia.

Chambers and Semakov through their interpretations and explorations move Suprematism in the direction of Neo-Suprematism. Their artworks accentuate and cultivate non-objectivity - the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art.

Exhibition: My Dear Malevich, Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations (two-person show with Max Semakov), CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

My Dear Malevich, Red Sweep Black Square,

Suprematism Infinity: Reflections, Interpretations, Explorations (2015)

"Suprematism Infinity: Reflections, Interpretations, Explorations" showcases works by Tom R. Chambers, Mark Khidekel, Irina Nakhova and Max Semakov. It explores works inspired by the legacy of Suprematism through new forms, styles, media, and technology.

Exhibition: My Dear Malevich, Red Sweep Black SquareSuprematism Infinity: Reflections, Interpretations, Explorations (Group Show), Atrium Gallery, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York City, New York, U.S.A., December 1, 2015 - January 22, 2016.

Invented by Kazimir Malevich a century ago, Suprematism became one of the most radical and influential art movements of the 20th century. It brought the Russian avant-garde into a state of absolute non-objectivity, based on "pure feeling." Suprematism created a perception of multiple dimensions without horizons or boundaries and translated these perceptions into energetic relationships between primary geometrical forms. Suprematism also produced a synthesis that merged exploration of the imagination with revolutionary changes in modern science; it allowed development while embracing science and technology as creative tools.

Tom R. Chambers, an artist and educator of digital/new media art, exhibits a transition from realistic photos to pixel abstractions in his series of pixelscapes, "My Dear Malevich" and "Red Sweep Black Square". They are part of a larger body of works entitled "Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations." For Chambers, Pixelscapes is minimal art in keeping with Malevich's Suprematism - the feeling of non-objectivity - the creation of a sense of bliss and wonder via abstraction.

Mark Khidekel explores the Suprematist form-creation principles through his career as an architect, designer, and artist. Khidekel has produced many multi-functional projects, including his Post-Suprematist design for the St. Petersburg Russian Museum's Depository and innovative environmental projects in Russia and the US such as Ostrov (1970s) and Bridge-city (2008-2014). These continue the visionary and environmental legacy of futuristic projects from the 1920s.

Irina Nakhova, the first female artist to represent Russia at the Venice Biennale, will display a digital documentation of part of her Green Pavilion "total environments", which according to The Guardian was one of the best 5 pavilions of Venice Biennale 2015. Her discovery of the liberating power of Suprematism in the early 1980s allowed Nakhova to abstract herself from the Soviet reality and create a new artistic environment in her own apartment. It became one of the seminal projects of Moscow conceptualism and Nakhova's site-specific environmental art. Nakhova's Malevich's Cube is the focal point of her "time machine". Marked by three lightening squares the black room is "the axis of past, present and future." Space, light, colors, and video imagery create an experience that is both emotionally charged and engaging for the viewer. In Nakhova's words, the black cube represents a "strange, mysterious, unpredictable Russia.“

Max Semakov, a photographer and artist, exhibits his series "Where is Black?" that injects colored planes into ordinary landscapes in the search for the point of transition to the Suprematist universe. His project "Suprematist Park" is inspired by Suprematist architectons transformed into elements of recreational architecture. Chambers and Semakov, who share similar aspirations, produce works that have similarities in method or intent to earlier Suprematist pieces, but make use of digital/new media, resulting in the hybridization of the non-objective form.

The issues of nature, space and the environment remain cornerstones of contemporary discourse. It is through Suprematism that these issues can be discussed emotionally and creatively. The "blissful sense of liberation" experienced by Malevich can be found in a legacy that continues to encourage the emergence of new ways to create and interpret art.

Curator: Regina Khidekel.

This exhibition is in conjunction with the "100 Years of Suprematism" conference, Shapiro Center, Columbia University, New York City, December 11 - 12, 2015. It is organized in celebration of the centenary of Kazimir Malevich's invention of Suprematism and the first public display of his Suprematist paintings in December, 1915. The two-day conference is organized in association with the Harriman Institute, the Lazar Khidekel Society, and SHERA. It features presentations by an international and renowned group of scholars. Among them are leading researchers in the field from the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The event includes a presentation of "Kazimir Malevich: Letters and Documents, Memoirs and Criticism" (London: Tate, 2015).

Tom R. Chambers donated his works, "My Dear Malevich" and "Red Sweep Black Square" to the Russian American Cultural Center (RACC) Art Collection, New York City.

Mark Khidekel (left) is the son of Lazar Khidekel who studied with Kazimir Malevich.

Retro Providence: 1985-1990 (2016)

Tom R. Chambers returned to Providence, Rhode Island to showcase a sampling of his coverage as Mayoral and City Photographer for Providence, 1985-1990. The exhibition comprises 60 prints of city activities and its people 26-31 years ago. The coverage over a six-year period is a direct result of a mayor's presence and activity throughout the environs of a city. It is assignment-based via a press secretary's office, City Hall. The viewers of this exhibit are able to reflect on city environs/activities, and compare yesterday's with today's Providence. For those individuals who were a part of the coverage during that period of time and now, it will undoubtedly hold dear their involvement/participation that comprises this time capsule.

The project is similar to the "Hot City" exhibit that Chambers compiled when he worked for the City of Providence in 1989. At that time, American Photographer magazine listed the exhibition in its "Notable Exhibitions" section in their July 1989 issue.

These photographs/prints and all negatives that Chambers made during his tenure are part of City Archives as the "Tom R. Chambers Collection".

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Exhibition: Corridor Gallery, City Archives City Hall (Sponsored by Providence City Archives), Providence, Rhode Island, October 14 - December 14, 2016.

Route 66, Texas Panhandle (2016)

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Mattie Oline: Thoughts of a Grandmother (2017)

Tom R. Chambers put this project together as a tribute to his grandmother, Mattie Oline (Battles) Meekins, 1899-1997. She kept a diary from 1948 through part of 1993. Chambers researched her entries over the years, and chose the ones that have significance for him and society. His grandmother rarely missed making a daily entry in her diary during 45-plus years - an astonishing 16,000-plus entries. Chambers was born in July of 1947, so her diaries were ongoing from when he was about six-months old through the age of 45. The entries are practical, heartfelt and country-bred.

In the early 1900s, she moved with her family to Texas in a covered wagon. Later, she got married to Bill (Willie) Meekins, and raised a family of five in Hynds City. This country village is on Farm Road 103 eight miles north of Nocona in Montague County. It was developed in 1925, when oil production began in the area, and it served local oil production workers. There were a church and three businesses there during the "boom". The Meekins (Chambers' grandparents) owned one of the businesses - a store and gasoline station. After Mrs. Meekins' husband passed away in 1964, she moved her home to Nocona, and lived there until she passed away in 1997.

There are three basic reasons for making entries in a diary: the first is to record what has transpired; the second is to make notes on future activities/events; and the third is for the entries to be kept with other diary entries to become a personal history. Chambers considers his grandmother's collection of 46 diaries a personal history including family and friends with occasional comments/reactions to societal events.

Chambers' grandmother's handwriting is used to provide an immediacy - connection - with Mattie Oline. Notes are used to add more information. He hopes that his grandmother would understand why he has chosen to go public with some of her diary entries: to pay tribute to an individual who helped raise him; and to indicate his sense of longing for her presence. As a former educator, he also sees merit in using family diaries as educational tools.

Information about the project as it relates to its physical exhibition:

"Mattie Oline: Thoughts of a Grandmother" conjures up emotions in a collective sense that touches all families - all grandmothers. It can be treated as textual art evidenced by the actual entries made by Chambers' grandmother. Her script through the years morphs/evolves, and it draws the viewer in because of its personal nature and sense of immediacy - setting up an intimate connection with this woman who once put pen to paper.

In another artistic/aesthetic sense, the project's physicality and surround configuration within the gallery space is similar to another Chambers project, Mother's 45s

His grandmother's actual diaries are encased within a glass urn/vase as the centerpiece. There is an auditory component of piano music his grandmother used to listen to. The project becomes mixed media via the prints on the wall, her actual diaries encased in the glass urn/vase (3D) as the centerpiece, and the audio permeating the gallery space.

When the viewer steps into the installation, he/she immediately steps inside Chambers' grandmother's mind via the diary entries. There's also a sense of "time travel" as the entries move the viewer through 45 years of existence, 1948 - 1993. And as the viewer looks at/reads the diary entries (prints on the wall), he/she will more than likely glance at the actual diaries (located in the center of the space) repeatedly, back and forth from the prints to the actual diaries back to the prints. This stimulation of the viewer sets up a meaningful connection between the two - prints and actual diaries.

Mattie Oline: Thoughts of a Grandmother

Exhibition: Tales 'n' Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas, September 23 - October 27, 2017.

Nocona – The Early Years (2017)

Tom R. Chambers put this project together based on a selection of photographs provided by the citizens and now residing in the Permanent Collection of the Tales 'N' Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas. It shows the early years of the community and surrounding areas. It puts a "face" and sometimes names to activities over a 100 years ago that were a formative influence. The text is extracted from TSHA (Texas State Historical Association) and other sources to provide as accurate a narrative as possible to reflect the mores and living conditions of the time.

The photographs are courtesy of: Bill Billings, Bill Crowe, Louie Labeau, Nell Ann McBroom, Doris Reed, Glenn and Marie Stouder, James Wallace, Clarice Whiteside, Rosemary Wingate, and Eddie Yetter. The originals were scanned by Mike Storey. The restorations, poster layouts, and research were made by Tom R. Chambers.

The research was edited and approved by Nell Ann McBroom (Director/Curator, Tales 'N' Trails Museum) and Max Brown (Historian). Nocona is Chambers’ hometown.

Exhibition: Tales 'N' Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas, November 4 - December 31, 2017.

Little Tommy (2017)

Tom R. Chambers utilizes a photograph taken of him around the age of two or so (1949-1950). The kinetic, glitch treatment addresses the mind attempting to grasp the far past - and extreme youth - but just can't get there in full, consequently, the breakup of the short-lived image, over and over.

Little Tommy – YouTube

Exhibition: Digital Art Community (DAC), SIGGRAPH 2017, Los Angeles, California, July 30 - August 3, 2017.

Digital Suprematism - Geometric Abstraction (2018-)

During the early 2000s, Tom R. Chambers began to look at the pixel within the context of Suprematist and Geometric Abstractionist ​art. He equated the pixel with the works of non-objective artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Josef Albers, Barnett ​Newman, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Piet Mondrian and others. They generated works to establish an abstract visual language of ​the sublime, pure color, geometric form, deep contemplation and metaphysical pursuit of the truth.

The pixels or "Pixelscapes" - as he calls them - conform with many of these non-objective artists' works. They are a revelation for ​him when compared to these non-objective works generated many years before the pixel and Digital Revolution.

This body of work is derived from pixel configurations, and they stem from digitized reproductions of Kazimir Malevich's early works ​prior to his Suprematism and “Black Square”. These "Pixelscapes" are brought to the forefront to celebrate Malevich's latent and ​ultimate creativity which gave way to Suprematism with the display of "Black Square" and other works in 1915 as part of the Last ​Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10.

These pixel configurations are brought out large-scale. They are magnified, filtered and precisely isolated to provide geometric ​abstractions within color-field settings. This method not only conjures up Suprematism, Geometric Abstraction, Minimalism and ​Color-field for consideration, but also calls forth emotions, feelings, and responses in the viewer.

They have a geometrical advantage due to their inherent, quadrilateral formatting. In combination, they provide grids, planes and ​juxtapositions of color. And the color scheme is in situ (natural), because of the source image.

JD Jarvis, Art Critic/Artist and coauthor of Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital Artists (ISBN 1-59200-918-2):

"Mr. Chambers has been experimenting for several years with his series of "Pixelscapes" exhibitions. Utilizing the most basic unit of any computer graphic; the single pixel, his "Pixelscapes" serve as colorful pathways into the purely metaphysical aspects of art which, by virtue of presenting so little, leads the viewer to so much in terms of their own emotional content. This visual poetry contains the ironic connection between Modernist philosophy which moved visual art from figurative representational pictures of the physical world into an expressive and emotional world of abstraction; and, the digital realm in which the purely abstract unit of one pixel off - one pixel on, has been utilized to reproduce once again, with breath taking accuracy the physical world. Now, Chambers has shown a path by which this tool, which so often serves hyper-reality, is forced to reveal the abstract soul at its very core."

Collection/Installation

Four pieces from Tom R. Chambers' "Digital Suprematism - Geometric Abstraction" series were purchased by and installed at ​Perseus TDC (PTDC), Washington, D.C.

PTDC installed "DSGA-30" in their lobby at 80"x60" (vertical). It also installed "DSGA-5", "DSGA-16", and "DSGA-18" at 24"x30".

Based in Washington, D.C., PTDC wields the capabilities of a national firm with the dexterity of a local developer. With NOMA ​Center, they are responsible for creating a space that attracts and retains residential tenants. They want their artwork program to ​be welcoming, interesting, and be striking in its own right. Ownership wants the art to feel like art, not like art made specifically for ​interior design.

DSGA-5

DSGA-16

DSGA-18

DSGA-30

The Unconscious Glitch (2019)

Tom R. Chambers equates the "glitch" with Carl Jung's "archetypes" via the repetition of a portrait of Carl Jung and variations of its "glitched" image.

In Jungian psychology, archetypes are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious. Jung understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct. They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world. They are autonomous and hidden forms which are transformed once they enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals and their cultures. (Wp)

A "glitch" is a disruption in a system. Also, Glitch Art - the aestheticization of digital or analog errors - is a current, viable art form that includes workshops, lectures, performances, installations and screenings worldwide. (Wp)

Glitch Art is not only a popular approach within the digital medium, but also in Chambers' mind has an ideal connection with Carl Jung's "archetypes" because of its disruptive aspects. A glitch just as this archetype is an archaic pattern and image, albeit fleeting, but this project (these images) actualizes the potential by moving the "unconscious" to the conscious level via the printed flux (change) in the repetitive portrait of Carl Jung. And what better portrait than that of Jung to make this comparison, and Chambers takes this further by saying that as the exhibition is viewed as a whole, highly developed elements of the "collective unconscious" come to the forefront via the multi-portraits of Jung.

Windmills of a Mind’s Eye (2019)

This project by Tom R. Chambers comprises the Collection at the American Windmill Museum, Lubbock, Texas. It was shown at the museum, February/March, 2019. It is now on permanent display as part of the museum's collections.

Chambers takes great delight in this project since he grew up with windmills (wind pumps) and particularly the one that his grandfather used to pump water for his herd of cattle. The signature/logo that is seen bottom-right for each photograph incorporates an image of his grandfather's windmill (wind pump).

Forgotten and For Sale (2020)

Tom R. Chambers put together this project for exhibition and based on his coverage of old photographs at various antique shops in Texas. He is disappointed when he sees family photographs (heirlooms) on display and for sale at retail stores.

This project documents old photographs, in situ. They are “forgotten and for sale” in various antique shops in Texas (Hico, Georgetown, Brenham, Sealy). There is a lack of concern that prevails throughout the documentation. Family members (others) seem to have little regard for personal photo collections – visual histories that recall and validate genealogical connections, not to mention record historical moments in time.

Through arrangements and juxtapositions, the project not only calls attention to this neglect, but also recaptures those proud and familiar moments that comprise familial (otherwise) existence. Many of the images show a collective disregard via multiple photographs that make up the compositions.

What is interesting about this project is the fact that the old photographs are shown in their discarded and sell-mode fashion. Most if not all projects about old photographs show those images themselves – out of context.

Causa Mortis (2021)

Tom R. Chambers superimposes words that are synonymous with death onto photographs of him to create the project, “causa mortis”. The images are greatly out-of-focus to produce abstractions. From afar, they "can be made out", but upon close viewing and to be able to read the word, detail diminishes/vanishes.

Contemplation of death" is a phrase used when the thought of imminent death causes a person to transfer his or her property to another. The gift or transfer in such circumstance is called a "gift in contemplation of death" or a "gift causa mortis". As an artist, Chambers’ "gift causa mortis" is the creation of this project for public consumption.

The photo abstractions border on "otherworldliness". As he enters his twilight years, he looks back at these images in a contemplative manner, and they are indicative of a life lived in memories ... vague recollections … that now move him to the realization that death may be near.

Street Photography Workshops and Exhibitions (2021-2022)

Street Photography and Documentary Portraiture Workshop One (2021)

Tom R. Chambers taught an all-day street photography and documentary portraiture workshop at Precision Camera (Education Center), Austin, Texas, June 5, 2021. He covered the history of street photography, discussed Masters' photographs and his photographs, and discussed the street environment and documentation concepts/strategies.

The participants made photographs on the streets of Austin based on classroom discussion, and then returned to Precision Camera to critique and select their images for an exhibition titled, "On the Streets of Austin" held at Artworks Gallery in the city, July 3 - August 7, 2021. 

Chambers states, "For a first-time approach on the streets of Austin, the participants did very well. Street photography is not an easy genre, if you take into account that it requires the introduction of the human element as it relates to:

environment, evaluation/assessment, activity (movement), timing (“decisive moment”), juxtapositions, foreground/background relationships, light play/shadow play (lights/darks), contrast, camera position (angle of approach), perspective, shape/form, geometry, depth-of-field/focal range, repetition, symmetry/asymmetry, oddities ("strangeness", "breaking of the norm"), anachronism, cultural (other) contrast, etc.“

Susan Sontag (American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist; 1933-2004) once stated:

"The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur [observer of society] finds the world picturesque.”

Exhibition opening at Artworks Gallery, Austin, Texas (July 3, 2021).

Street Photography and Documentary Portraiture Workshop II (2021)

Tom R. Chambers taught an all-day street photography and documentary portraiture workshop at Precision Camera (Education Center), Austin, Texas, October 9, 2021. He covered the history of street photography, discussed Masters' photographs and his photographs, and discussed the street environment and documentation concepts/strategies.

PowerPoint Presentation (tomrchambers.com)

The participants made photographs on the streets of Austin based on classroom discussion, and then returned to Precision Camera to critique and select their images for an exhibition titled, "On the Streets of Austin II (Reflections)" held at Artworks Gallery in the city, January 8 - February 12, 2022. 

Exhibition opening at Artworks Gallery, Austin, Texas (January 8, 2022).

Bio

Tom R. Chambers is a visual artist (digital/new media and mixed media), documentarian, curator and educator with over 100 personal exhibitions ​worldwide. He has also curated numerous exhibitions in the U.S.A., Zimbabwe, China and India.

He is currently working with the pixel as Suprematist and Geometric Abstractionist Art, and Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square”. His "My Dear Malevich" ​project has received international acclaim, and it was shown as a part of “Suprematism Infinity: Reflections, Interpretations, Explorations”, Atrium Gallery, ​Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York City, New York (December 1, 2015 - January 22, 2016) and in conjunction with the "100 Years of ​Suprematism" conference, Shapiro Center, Columbia University, New York City (December 11 - 12, 2015) (Organized in celebration of the centenary of ​Kazimir Malevich’s invention of Suprematism and the first public display of his Suprematist paintings in December, 1915.).

Chambers is currently participating in an online artist residency with St. Petersburg Art Residency (Russia) re: his work with Suprematism and Kazimir ​Malevich's "Black Square" (https://virtualresidency.p-10.ru/author/tom-chambers/).

"DSGA 75" from his "Digital Suprematism - Geometric Abstraction" project was shown in the exhibition, "Sciarsism" in Minsk, Belarus. Opening: February ​22, 2024.

Chambers has been invited to give a presentation re: his "Digital Suprematism - Geometric Abstraction" project as part of the "Art Lab Series" (June 5, ​2023) based in the Dean Clough complex in Halifax, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England.

His "Analog, Appropriation, Digital - Repurposing of the Analog via the Pixel" presentation was delivered as part of "Within the Frame: Continuum of the ​Still Image", SPARKS/DAC/SIGGRAPH, December 3, 2021 (Moderated by Dena Eber and Sue Gollifer.). The 10th SPARKS session welcomed the ​presentation of artworks and projects that represented the continuum of image making and that revealed the essential ways that digital tools have ​moved it forward.

Chambers' "Black Square TransFORMations", "Black Square Embellished" and "The Pixel as Suprematist and Minimalist Art" projects were presented as ​book presentations at the "Second Russian Congress on Color", The International Conference of the Color Society of Russia, Smolensk, Russia ​(December 1-5, 2020).

His video, "Black Square Desecration" ("Black Square Interpretations") was officially selected for viewing as part of Experimental Animation and Video Art Program, LINOLEUM International Contemporary Animation and Media-Art Festival, Ukraine, September 28 - October 1, 2017.

Chambers curated the two-person (him and Max Semakov [Moscow, Russia]) exhibition, “Black Square Interpretations and Other Suprematist Explorations”, which was shown at the CaviArt Gallery, Russian Cultural Center, Houston, Texas (March 6 - April 7, 2015) (BSI). A portion of this exhibition was also shown as a part of “Post Scriptum 100 + 8”, OMG Gallery, Moscow, Russia (June 8 - July 8, 2015) (Chambers came together with seven Russian artists in Moscow to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Suprematism [1915-2015].)

He was Visiting Lecturer in digital/new media art for the Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China (2005 – 2007). He joined the department to develop and teach a digital/new media art program. He also curated numerous student exhibitions. While in China, he developed his “Tom Series” project, which has been shown in eighteen exhibitions worldwide (2006-2022). Chambers utilizes the self-portrait to project his life experiences. His portrait remains constant with the experience (situation) indicated as a change or flux in the image.

Chambers was invited by the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, India to conduct a three-week, new media art workshop for its new media design graduate students. The workshop culminated in the exhibition, “NMA@NID” (2006) (The no-constraints workshop encouraged self-expression through computer technology within a fine arts context.

He was Executive Committee Member and Juror for the International Digital Art Awards (IDAA) (2003-2005) (based in Australia). He was instrumental in expanding the content of the IDAA to include new media art, and he served as online New Media Director (2004-2005). He was also instrumental in helping to bring the 2005 IDAA Exhibition to Beijing, China under the auspices of the Beijing Film Academy. He was also invited by the Fine Arts Department, New Media Art, Beijing Film Academy, Beijing, China to give a retrospective lecture, “Dyer Street Portraiture to Pixelscapes” (April 8, 2005).

Chambers completed a three-year tour as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in the Arts (curator/archivist and initiator/instructor [“The McEwen Photographic Studio”]) for the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe (1993-1995). He was instrumental in writing grant proposals and receiving funding (Social Science Research Council, New Tork City) to computerize the gallery’s Permanent Collection information. He also curated numerous exhibitions from the Permanent Collection.

He was invited by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe to exhibit “Variations on the Dan Mask” (Chambers used an African Traditional mask from the Dan Tribe in Eastern Liberia [a piece from the Permanent Collection: PC - 6400 – 0147] as the object for the photogram, then manipulated the non-exposed area generated from this original mask form to vary the look.) (December 1995; officially opened by the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe).

While in Zimbabwe, he also received a U.S. Government Grant via the United States Information Service (USIS), Harare to exhibit “Southwest Of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection” at the USIS Gallery (June-July 1995; officially opened by the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe; and accepted as a part of the USIS Archives Permanent Collection).

Chambers' tribute piece (mixed media/interactive work), “Mother's 45s” was selected through national search for exhibition as a part of the “Parents” show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio (catalogue #: ISBN #0-932706-20-7) (1992). This work was also shown at Gallery One, Providence, Rhode Island (1990).

American Photographer magazine listed one of his documentary projects, “Dyer Street Portraiture” in the Notable Exhibitions section of its March, 1986 issue ("The black-and-white images record a diversity of common people in an urban habitat with an ambiance of film noir."). Chambers founded and directed a not-for-profit, photographic arts organization and gallery, “Viewpoint”, Lubbock, Texas (American Photographer magazine reviewed one of the exhibitions at the gallery in its April, 1983 issue) (1982-1983). He also founded and directed a not-for-profit, photographic arts organization, “Photoreach”, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. (1990).

His documentary project, “Descendants 350” was shown throughout Rhode Island, and accepted by the Secretary of State (Rhode Island) as a part of the Rhode Island State Archives Permanent Collection (1990) (The project received a Governor's [Rhode Island] Proclamation).

Chambers was listed (1984-1991) in the Artists-In-Education roster with the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts (RISCA), and he served as an advisory panelist for RISCA to determine funding for residency programs. He also served as an advisory panelist for the State of Connecticut Commission on the Arts to determine funding for residency programs.

He provided photo documentation of city life and politics (Executive Office of the Mayor, Providence, Rhode Island). He also provided photo documentation for the Rhode Island Delegation at the Democratic National Convention, Atlanta, Georgia (1988), which culminated in the exhibition, “Hot City”.

Chambers conducted Polaroid workshops for at-risk, inner-city youth in Providence, Rhode Island for Metro Arts, and served as an advisory panelist for ​the organization (1986-1990). He also produced and directed visual arts/performance arts presentations, “VP90” (“Release”) and “CYSX2” as a part of ​First Night Providence, Providence, Rhode Island (1989-1991). He worked with Harvey J. Bott (Loft on Strand) to document his sculpture and assemblages. ​He also had a two-person show with Bott providing his (Chambers’) perspective on the sculptor’s Fetal Form series, “Tom Chambers Looks at H.J. Bott”, ​Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas (1974).

Exhibitions

"DSGA 75" ("Digital Suprematism - Geometric Abstraction" project), "Sciarsism" (group show), Minsk, Belarus, February 22, 2024 (opening).

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom”), “The FACE” (group show) City Art Center (The Center of Culture/CK-19), Novosibirsk, Russia, April 22 - May ​29, 2022.

“On the Streets of Austin II (Reflections)” (group show), Artworks Gallery, Austin, Texas, January 8 - February 12, 2022.

“On the Streets of Austin” (group show), Artworks Gallery, Austin, Texas, July 3 - August 7, 2021.

“PSMA-1”, “Modern Masterpieces” (group show), Downtowner Art Gallery, Round Rock, Texas, April 27 - June 25, 2021.

“The Primordial Pixel”, IV-2 2020 (group show), Melbourne 24th International Conference Information Visualisation - PART II@Melbourne, Victoria University, ​Melbourne, Australia, November 24-27, 2020.

“The Primordial Pixel”, 24th International Symposium Digital Art, and Online Gallery - D-ART - IV2020 (group show), Vienna 24th International Conference Information ​Visualisation - PART I@Vienna, Vienna, Austria, July 28-31, 2020.

“Black Square Embellished” (“Black Square Interpretations”) (group show), International Digital Art Gallery (D-ART) (July 2019), the 23rd International Information ​Visualization Conference, University of Paris, Paris, France (July 2-5, 2019) and the 16th International Conference Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualization ​Conference, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia (Organized in London, England.), July 16-19, 2019.

“Windmills of the Mind's Eye” (solo show), American Windmill Museum, Lubbock, Texas, March 16, 2019 (opening) (on permanent display).

“Black Square Space” (“Black Square Interpretations”) (group show) International Digital Art Gallery (D-ART) for the 22nd International Conference on Information ​Visualization & 15th Conference Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualization, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy (Organized in London, England), July 10-13, 2018.

“Nocona - The Early Years” (solo show), Tales 'N' Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas, November 4 - December 31, 2017.

“Mattie Oline: Thoughts of a Grandmother” (solo show), Tales 'N' Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas, September 23 – October 27, 2017.

“Black Square Desecration”, “Experimental Animation and Video Art Program” (group show), LINOLEUM International Contemporary Animation and Media-Art Festival, ​Ukraine, September 28 - October 1, 2017.

“Tom Series” (“First Love Tom, Apple Tom, Apollo Tom”), “Face to Face” (group show), Modern Fine Arts Museum, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, August 18, 2017.

“Little Tommy” (group shpw), Digital Art Community (DAC) installation, SIGGRAPH 2017, Los Angeles, July 30 - August 3, 2017.

“Beyond Black Square”, Digital Art Community (DAC) installation (group show), SIGGRAPH 2017, Los Angeles, July 30 - August 3, 2017.

“Retro Providence: 1985-1990”, Corridor Gallery (solo show), City Archives, City Hall (sponsored by Providence City Archives), Providence, Rhode Island, October 14 - December 14, 2016.

“The Primordial Pixel” (“PP-1”,” PP-2”), The First Catskill Digital Art Show (group show), The Atelier Progressif Creative Art Space, Catskill, New York, U.S.A., March 11 - April 8, 2016.

“My Dear Malevich”, “Red Sweep Black Square”, “Suprematism Infinity: Reflections, Interpretations, Explorations” (group show), Atrium Gallery, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York City, New York, December 1, 2015 - January 22, 2016. (Note: this exhibition is in conjunction with the "100 Years of Suprematism" conference, Shapiro Center, Columbia University, New York City, December 11 - 12, 2015.)

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Tolijatti State Art Museum, Russia, October - December, 2015.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Perm State Art Gallery, Russia, May - July, 2015.

“Black Square Interpretations”, “Post Scriptum 100 + 8” (group show), One Month Gallery (OMG), Moscow, Russia, June 8 - July 8, 2015.

“Tom Series”, (“Tube Tom”), “The Selfie Show: An Art Exhibition of Self-portraits” (group show), Museum of New Art, Troy, Michigan, May - June, 2015.

“My Dear Malevich”, “Black Square Interpretations”, CaviArt Gallery (two-person show), The Russian Cultural Center "Our Texas", Houston, Texas, March 6 - April 7, 2015.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Villa Ichon, Bremen, Germany, November - December, 2014.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Samara State Art Museum, Russia, May - July, 2014.

“To be”, “Shakespeare 450” (group show), Novosibirsk State Regional Scientific Library, Novosibirsk, Russia, June 1 - 30, 2014.

“To be”, “Shakespeare 450” (group show), Centre of Contemporary Youth Culture "Etazh/Storey", Novosibirsk, Russia, April 25 - May 20, 2014.

“To be”, “Shakespeare 450” (group show), Shakespearean Literary Festival, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Russia, April 23, 2014.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), SFA Galleries, Nacogdoches, Texas, September - October, 2013.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Photo Festival, Arezzo, Italy, September - October, 2012.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”),“The FACE” (group show), Manomentr Gallery, Moscow, Russia, February, 2012.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Eumeria Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, December 12 - 17, 2011.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Rosphoto Exhibition Centre for Photography, St. Petersburg, Russia, November 25 - December 1, 2011.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Gallery, American University of Paris, Paris, France, October 11 - November 7, 2011.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”),“The FACE” (group show), Metenkov Museum of photography, Ekaterinburg, Russia, August 17 - September 18, 2011.

“Yin Yang Future”, “Imagining the Future We Want” (group show), VALISE Gallery, Vashon, Washington, September, 2011.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Chelyabinsk Museum of arts, Chelyabinsk, Russia, July 5 - August 9, 2011.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Roba Gallery, Omsk, Russia, June 18 - July 6, 2011.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Krasnoyarsk Cultural Museum Centre, Russia, March 31 - May 22, 2011.

“Tom Series” (“Hometown Tom, Tube Tom, Apple Tom, Photo Tom”), “The FACE” (group show), Novosibirsk State Museum of Local History, Novosibirsk, Russia, February 16 - March 14, 2011.

“My Dear Malevich”, Beyond the Borders (The Guest section) (group show), Novosibirsk Municipal Center of Fine Arts, Novosibirsk, Russia, November 3 - 21, 2010.

“My Dear Malevich” (“MDM-1”), “Homage: Contemporary Art in Digital Media” (group show), Art Institute of California, San Diego, California, October 8 - November 8, 2010.

“My Dear Malevich”, “Pixelscapes”, The H Gallery (solo show), Houston, Texas, July 10 - August 9, 2010.

“My Dear Malevich” (“MDM-1”), “Homage: Contemporary Art in Digital Media” (group show), Escondido Arts Partnership Municipal Gallery, Escondido, California, July 9 - August 21, 2010.

“Buddha Earth”, “Digital Art for a Healthy Planet” (group show), Common Ground, A&I Gallery, Los Angeles, California, July 8 - August 13, 2010.

“Buddha Earth”, “Digital Art for a Healthy Planet” (group show), Common Ground (Limited Edition Commemorative Book; all the book proceeds donated to these environmental non-profit organizations: The World Wildlife Fund, Global Giving, and the Global Environmental Institute.), Huan Tie Art Museum, Beijing, China, November 9 - 19, 2008.

“Wide-screen China”, “Captured” (group show), Houston Institute For Culture, The Haven Center, Houston, Texas, October 6 - November 1, 2007.

“My Dear Malevich”, aniGma-4 (Fourth Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging) (group show), Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia, May 10 - June 10, 2007.

“My Dear Malevich”, Art Gallery (solo show), Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China, April 2 - 15, 2007.

“Tom Series” (“China Tom, Tao Tom, Hometown Tom, AHS Tom”), “SELF/SOUL” (Joint Student Exhibition, Zhaoqing University and University of Louisville[Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.]) (group show), Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, China, December 1 - 25, 2006.

“Tom Series” (“China Tom, Tao Tom, Hometown Tom, Target Tom”),“Faculty Exhibition” (group show), Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, China, November 25 - December 1, 2006.

“Kites for Ghandhi”, “NMA@NID” (group show), National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, July 10 – 28, 2006.

“Pixelscapes”, IDAA 2005 (group show) (Juror invitation), QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia, July - August, 2005.

“Pixelscapes”, Art and Music 2005 (group show), Coves de Canelobre (Caves of Candalabra), Busot, Spain, August 19 - 21, 2005.

“Pixelscapes”, IDAA 2005 (group show) (Juror invitation), VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia, June - July, 2005.

“Pixelscapes”, aniGma-2, The 2d Novosibirsk International Festival of Digital Imaging & Animation (group show), Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Novosibirsk, Russia, April - May, 2005.

“The People of Longhu Town, China”, “Zhao/Chambers Joint Photo Exhibition” (two-person show), Yellow River College of Technology, Zhengzhou, China, April, 2005.

“Pixelscapes”, IDAA 2005 (group show) (Juror invitation), The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Inveresk, Australia, March - April, 2005.

“Pixelscapes”, IDAA 2004 (group show) (Juror invitation), VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia, August - September, 2004.

“Public Domain Reconstruction”, “Red Lines”, Dart Gallery, Information Visualization Symposium (IV2004) (group show), University of London, London, England, July 14-16, 2004.

“Pixelscapes”, IDAA 2004 (group show) (Juror invitation), QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia, June 4 - August 15, 2004.

“The People of Longhu Town, China”, “Zhao/Chambers Joint Photo Exhibition” (two-person show), Library Gallery, Sheng Da College, Zhengzhou, China, June, 2004.

“Pixelscapes”, IDAA 2004 (group show) (Juror invitation), The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Inveresk, Australia, April-May, 2004.

“Pixelscapes”, Museum of Computer Art (MOCA) (solo show), March, 2004.

“Pixelscapes”, “InterGraphic” (group show), Bishkek International Exhibition of Graphic Art, State Museum of Fine Arts, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, February 27 - March 6, 2004.

“Pixelscapes”, “IDAA 2003” (group show) (Juror invitation), VCA Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Southbank Victoria, Australia, December, 2003.

“Pixelscapes”, International Festival of Digital Imaging & Animation (group show), Novosibirsk, Russia, October 18 - 19, 2003.

“Pixelscapes”, Third Novosibirsk International Contemporary Graphic Biennial 2003 (group show), State Picture Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia, September - November, 2003.

“Streak 16”, Dart Gallery, Information Visualization Symposium (IV2003) (group show), University of London, London, England, July 16-18, 2003.

“Pixelscapes”, “Art Is Everywhere” (group show), Boston Cyberarts Festival, Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, Boston, Massachusetts, April 26 - May 10, 2003.

“Pixelscapes”, Digital Content Consortium (DCC) Conference (featured artist; solo show) University of North Carolina-Pembroke, March 28-29, with the exhibition to continue at the UNC Art Department/Media Integration Project through May 15, 2003.

“Pixelscapes”, IDAA 2003 (group show) (Juror invitation), The Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Australia, March-April, 2003.

“Pixelscapes”, Museum of Contemporary Art (solo show), Solovki (Solovetskie Ostrova/Solovetskie Islands, White Sea), Russia, Summer, 2002.

“Pixelscapes”, ArCade-III in Russia (group show) (an international exhibition of computer generated prints), Novosibirsk, Russia (curated by Sue Gollifer, University of Brighton and the London Institute, UK and by Andrey Martynov, LeVall Art Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia), July 18 - 31, 2002.

“Pixelscapes”, LeVall Art Gallery (solo show), Novosibirsk, Russia, April 4-17, 2002.

“Toe Totum”, “Glass Membrane: Scanner to Screen” (group show), Digital Studio, UCR/California Museum of Photography, Los Angeles, CA, March 23 - May 12, 2002.

“Geo, Blades, Mutation”, “IDAA 2001” (group show), Noosa Regional Gallery, Australia, 2001.

“People to People”, Kumho Art Center (two-person show) (accepted as part of the Kumho Art Foundation Archives), Gwangju, South Korea 1997.

“Southwest of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection”, (“SWRMC-1”), Hyperlink: PhotoForum Worldwide Exhibition (group show), Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, 1997.

“Dyer Street Portraiture” (solo show), PhotoForum Online Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, 1997.

“Southwest of Rusape: The Mucharambeyi Connection” (solo show), Corridor Gallery, United States Information Service (USIS) (received a United States Government grant ; officially opened by the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe; and accepted as a part of the USIS Archives.), Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa, 1995.

“Variations on the Dan Mask” (solo show), Mezzanine Gallery, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa, December, 1995.

“Mother’s 45s”, “Parents” (group show), Museum of Contemporary Art, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio (selected through national competition), April 13 - May 14, 1992.

“Providence in Austin” (solo show), G.F. Gallery, Austin, Texas, February 20 - March 12, 1992.

“A Night at the Silver Top” (three-person show), Po Gallery/Anchor Project Providence, Rhode Island, 1992.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), Rhode Island State Archives (accepted by the Secretary of State as a part of the Rhode Island State Archives Permanent Collection), Providence, Rhode Island, 1991.

“In Black and White” (solo show), Rhode Island Black Heritage Society (accepted as part of the Permanent Collection), Providence, Rhode Island, 1991.

“Dyer Street Portraiture”, “Photo 1991” (group show), Lincoln (Flanagan) Campus Art Gallery, Community College of Rhode Island, Lincoln, Rhode Island, 1991.

“Mother’s 45s” (solo show), Gallery One, Providence, Rhode Island, April, 1990.

“Hot City” (solo show), Corridor Gallery, Rhode Island Hospital Trust National Bank, Providence, Rhode Island, June 16 - August 31, 1989.

“Dyer Street Portraiture”, “Photo Show 1988” (group show), Corridor Gallery, Department of Transportation (sponsored by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts), Providence, Rhode Island, 1988.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), The Old Colony House (sponsored by the Secretary of State's Office, Rhode Island), Newport, Rhode Island, 1988.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), The State House (sponsored by the Secretary of State's Office, Rhode Island; and received a Governor's Proclamation), Providence, Rhode Island, 1988.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), The Barrington Public Library (sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution), Barrington, Rhode Island, 1988.

“People and Cultures” (solo show), The Roger Williams Park Museum (grant - City of Providence), Providence, Rhode Island, 1987.

“In and Out”, “Photo Show 1987” (group show), Gallery One, Providence, Rhode Island, 1987.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), Faculty Club Gallery, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1987.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), The Warwick Museum of Art, Warwick, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1987.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), The Narragansett Pier Free Library (sponsored by the Narragansett Historical Society), Narragansett, Rhode Island, U.S.A. 1987.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), CCE Gallery, The University of Rhode Island, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 1987.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), The Roger Williams Park Museum (sponsored by the City of Providence), Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. 1987.

“Descendants 350” (solo show), The Fleet Center Gallery (grant - Providence 350, Inc.), Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. 1986.

“Hometown”, “Emerging Rhode Island Artists” (group show), Corridor Gallery (sponsored by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts), T.F. Green Airport, Warwick, Rhode Island, 1986.

“Dyer Street Portraiture” (solo show), The Silver Bullet Gallery (listed in the Notable Exhibitions section of American Photographer magazine, March, 1986), Providence, Rhode Island, 1986.

“Dyer Street Portraiture”, “Photo 1985” (group show), The Gallery of Fine Arts, Daytona Beach Community College, Daytona Beach, Florida, 1985.

“Dyer Street Portraiture” (solo show), Southern Light Gallery, Amarillo College, Amarillo, Texas, 1985.

“Med-Lines” (solo show), Medical Library, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas, 1982.

“Mexico: A Package Tour” (solo show), The Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, 1981.

“Tom Chambers Looks at H.J. Bott” (two-person show), The Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas, 1975.

“Once Upon a Strand” (solo show), Galveston County Courthouse, Galveston, Texas, 1974.

“Once Upon a Strand” (solo show), American National Insurance Archives, Galveston, Texas, 1974.