Tom Moody (died March 19, 2022) was an American visual artist, critic and blogger based in New York City. He began his career as a painter, using traditional materials, but became sensitive to the chemicals. In the mid-1990s, upon moving to New York, he began working with
MS Paintbrush during downtime at a day job and continued using this
abandonware
Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no official support is available.
Within an intellectual rights contextual background, abandonware is a software (or hardware) sub-case of the g ...
throughout his life, despite more sophisticated programs such as
Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...
being widely available. Later works made use of animated
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
files.
Life and career
Moody grew up in Texas, then double majored in fine arts (painting) and English Literature at the University of Virginia, and worked as an artist and critic in Dallas for local papers and
Artforum
''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
before moving to New York.
In addition to obsolete software, his artworks combined traditional and digital media and techniques, combining art and craft. The New York Times reviewed his artworks, calling them "amusing, also, for the way they fuse high modern associations, like Cubism or Greenbergian all-overness, with kitsch associations of
Op Art
Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions.
Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images ...
and cheap office technology."
He showed these
new media art
New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of new media, electronic media technology, technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video g ...
works at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York; the
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...
; Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn; the
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population o ...
, Connecticut; the
University at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
, New York; the
Drawing Center
The Drawing Center is a Manhattan, New York, museum and a nonprofit exhibition space that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary.
History
The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of drawings at ...
, New York;
Harbourfront Centre
Harbourfront Centre is a key cultural organization on the waterfront of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated at 235 Queens Quay West. Established as a crown corporation in 1972 by the Government of Canada to create a waterfront park, it became ...
, Toronto Canada; Homeroom, Munich, Germany; among others. One of his artist books is in the collection of the MoMA.
His art criticism was published by
Art Papers
''ART PAPERS'' is an Atlanta-based bimonthly art magazine and non-profit organization dedicated to the examination of art and culture in the world today. Its mission is to provide an independent and accessible forum for the exchange of perspectiv ...
,
Artforum
''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
, Sculpture Magazine and New Art Examiner.
In 2001, Moody began blogging about art, and as a venue to show his own art. His art blog received national and international interest from
Art in America
''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...
, Contemporary magazine and
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...
. His blog covered art and culture, as well as serving as a forum for publishing his own digital works. Art in America said, of his blog, "the site of New York painter Tom Moody shares with viewers images of his own paintings, his studio process, his visual passions and assorted enthusiasms. He also devoted a lot of space to the work of other artists who shared his interest in the intersection of abstraction and digital art. Mesmerizing digital animations and occasional comments, always opinionated and thoughtful, on exhibitions and art-world developments."
Moody died from
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
-related causes in
Goldthwaite, Texas
Goldthwaite is a town in Mills County, Texas, United States, that serves as the county seat. The population was 1,878 at the 2010 census.
History
Goldthwaite existed as a small village prior to the arrival of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Rai ...
, on March 19, 2022.
References
External links
*
An interview from 2005
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moody, Tom
20th-century births
2022 deaths
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
Artists from New York (state)
American digital artists
Year of birth missing
American video artists
Internet art
Artists from Texas
American contemporary painters
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas