Tboy - Happy Note White
Tboy - Happy Note White
Original Tboy Stencil
Signed, Framed & numbered.
A bit of a potted history about Tboy and a lifelong journey with art — it’s not been a straight line to get here, but it feels like I was always heading in this direction.
Art was all I was ever really good at when I was at school. In 1986 I secured a place at Worthing Art College (in England on the south coast) on a foundation course and went on to do a course in 3D design with fine art. It’s fair to say that I loved every minute of it.
When TBoy left art college, after seeing a small ad in the Chichester Observer newspaper TBoy went along for an interview at the David Poole Workshop; a bespoke framers for major galleries around the world. This is where my imagination was really ignited!
The Owner (David Goodman) was an established artist who had studied at St Martin’s College, London in the 1940’s. While art college gave me a real insight into colour, form and texture, David quickly became my real art teacher. He taught me all about hot and cold colours and how they could enhance or kill a painting dead.
I was fortunate enough to work on some of the major artists from the past along with upcoming artists of the time. A picture frame can make a good piece great and should always be considered part of the painting, in my opinion.
Recently Tboy was walking around Pallant House Gallery in Chichester I spotted three frames that he had hand coloured 30 years prior, which immediately took him back to a great part of my life — you can always recognise your own work, even with something as seemingly simple as a frame. More work goes into the framing process than you realise, more on that another time!
David eventually retired and recession hit and in the early 1990’s I was the last to leave the David Poole Workshop before it closed. It was a very sad day to say the least, I didn’t know where my career was headed next. For many years life took a different direction as a menswear retailer amongst other things.
Fast forward to March 2020 and lockdown. Covid -19 has been a gamechanger for so many people including me, having seen my retail business decimated, I found myself working from home more and more and this is when I started to focus on my artwork again — without drama, it’s always been my first love (don’t tell Mrs TBoy!) — I’m an avid collector of graphic art myself.
TBoy Studios launched April this year, through necessity as much as desire, and focussed on sharing his work primarily through social media — I’ve been overwhelmed by the response to date.
If you are creative it’s just in you and you have an overwhelming need to explore new ideas which I am constantly doing, the next step after that is to see if people feel the same way about what you are creating.
Music, Fashion, Movies & Art have always been a big influence on me personally and this inspires my work too