Nick Thomm
Sudden Synesthesia
The Hole, Los Angeles
November 16 - December 28, 2024
Through painting, sculpture and video Thomm explores color as a language for emotion, shifting hues as fleeting as feelings and stimulating one sensory pathway to create involuntary experiences in another. From the images you see when listening to music or the shape of a scent, Thomm turns the optical effects of color up to full volume while exploring synesthesia as a creative interplay between senses.
Inspired by the California Light and Space movement, Thomm explores intangibility. There is nothing our eye can grab onto and no detail to rest upon: he presents only hovering color. The lack of symmetry teases all our optical instincts; the compositions undulate as we swim through the sea of ROYGBIV. This rhythmic feedback sucks you in, daring you to stare until you get dizzy, while the larger works like Halo are so immersive they remove any grounding of the peripheral white gallery walls from your visual field.
Interested in the physicality of the digital, in the West gallery Thomm’s light installation bends light and color further. The optical movement evoked by the paintings fully realized in 4D, as if putting a finger on the light leaks and cosmic radiation felt like experiencing the paintings in person while also not really being there, projecting our seeing throughout the room.
Synesthesia, when your brain routes sensory information through multiple senses, means for Thomm the pursuit of more than just visual impact in his artworks. Inhale and Exhale, in cool and warm tones, loop in all bodily senses including awareness of breath, encouraging the viewer to slow and stay, take a few deep breaths and see what happens.