Born in Bay City, Michigan, Tom McKinkley was educated in both Europe and the United States. Beginning at the Goddard Collage in Vermont, he continued his education overseas in England at the Falmouth School of Art, the Ravensbourne College of Art, London, and Brighton Polytechnic. Currently, McKinley is living and working in the San Francisco area. Many of Tom McKinley’s new paintings depict quiet, still, uninhabited spaces. Most of these spaces belong in the interior of someone’s home yet they bare no trace of human contact or individuation. An edge of a billiard table, a corner of a pool, a section of a veranda; these spaces are beautiful and unexpected architectural experiences. A rhythm of geometry, pattern, and repeating forms permeate these quiet settings. Light from peripheral windows breathes some life into these otherwise inanimate spaces. McKinley paints in a meticulously photorealist style which further heightens the surreal nature of these images.
[text via John Berggruen Gallery]