04.22.08

Trucks, Seattle
by Tommy Perman

I divide my time between solo and collaborative projects.

My solo work relies heavily on drawing and over the last few years I have produced a large body of work in a variety of media: felt-tip pen drawings, screen prints, digital lambda prints and canvases.

The current focus of my solo work is an exploration into the way contemporary society's love affair with the motorcar has dictated the colours, shapes and forms of the urban environment in which most of us live. In 2002 I began an ambitious project, SURVEY : UK, with the intention to document the most densely populated areas of the UK through my drawing. I have now broadened the scope to include other places in Europe, Canada and the USA. Most of the towns and cities I visit devote huge areas of land to roads and parking lots; valuable space that could be used for housing, recreation or parkland.

Under concrete and tarmac, cities become fields of grey, but within these there are small explosions of bright colour in road markings, street signs and traffic cones. Everywhere we look we can see the visual language of the road. These symbols illustrate our dependence on an oil economy with all the frightening political implications this brings. They direct and confine us, mocking the myth that the motorcar offers freedom.