Tom Eslinger: Stuck In My Head
February 2nd to March 30th, 2024
CENTER ON HALSTED
2ND FLOOR GALLERY,
3656 N HALSTED ST
CHICAGO IL 60613, USA
Artist Tom Eslinger unveils his first solo exhibition, ‘Stuck in My Head,’ at the Center on Halsted in Chicago. The exhibition will run from 2nd February to 30th March in 2024. Eslinger is a renowned name in the advertising industry, having won the prestigious Cannes-Lions award as a Global Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi and Burson Marsteller. Eslinger decided to follow his passion for fine art and left the advertising industry on a high note. After years of travelling around the world, he settled in his native USA to pursue a career in the arts.
Eslinger is a professor of Communications at Columbia College who studied at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD). His design work can be found in the permanent Design Collection of MOMA in New York City and the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Collection. Eslinger’s experience as a leading creative director in the advertising industry, combined with his fine arts education and professorship, informs his artistic practice, drawing inspiration from his love of skating and pop culture, and applies his knowledge of brands and craft to his creative process.
‘Stuck in My Head‘ will showcase a thoughtfully curated collection of unique artworks. Which Eslinger created using laser-cut vintage album covers and handmade stickers, inspired by uplifting song lyrics such as ‘We learn the secret of a kiss and how it melts away the pain’, ‘How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people’, and ‘These are the days of mirages and wonder’. In Anton Corbjin’s documentary ‘Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)’, Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher describes vinyl as “the poor man’s art collection”.
Eslinger transforms vinyl album covers into art by ingeniously combining them with typography and memorable music lyrics. The resulting artworks are distinctive and evoke a sense of nostalgia, while also featuring uplifting mantras that offer an escape from the darkness of the modern world.
“Whatever the song is that I’m working from within the art or collage, there are other bits of the lyrics in there – I create custom stickers with bits and pieces inspired by lyrics and imagery like little ‘Easter eggs’. When I started working with a laser cutter and applied that technique and precision to my art and used more album
covers and vinyl.” Tom Eslinger
Eslinger’s inspiration comes from the work of seminal Pop Artists, including Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as the Punk aesthetic of Jamie Reed’ss Sex Pistols album covers and Hipgnosis’ss iconic vinyl artwork for seminal bands and musicians of the 60s and 70s including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney.Eslinger’s artwork combines echoes of Pop Art, Punk and Psychedelia with his childhood obsession for collecting memorabilia such as stickers, sew-on patches and Skateboard ephemera.
Tom Eslinger: Stuck In My Head opens on February 2nd until March 30th, 2024 at CENTER ON HALSTED
©2024 Tom Eslinger
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