The Junction Co. warmly welcomes Studio A Artist, Thom Roberts for a special Courthouse Gallery+Studio exhibition. The Pilbara community is invited to discover the creative talents of professional artists living with a disability and reimagine how we establish belonging towards our place and environment. 

Locomotive Dreams captures the energy of Neurodiverse artist Thom Roberts’ unique view on the world where people, transport and infrastructure systems are interpreted as colourful multiples. He sees trains as people he knows, and people as trains, bestowing people with new identities and translates them, enigmatically, in painting. 

Transport and infrastructure play an integral role in our daily lives, especially so in the resource-rich Pilbara. Living amongst the world’s largest bulk export port with long trains, big ships and salt piles, we observe the iron ore-stained structures and road trains around us daily. Thom encourages us to reimagine these often-mundane structures and discover relationships formed amongst our landscape that affirms our belonging. Living regionally pushes us to reconstruct and rethink the elements of home through kinship and connection.   

Thom works across painting, drawing, installation, animation and performance, and is an awarded and recognized contemporary Australian artist. In 2021 he was a finalist in the Archibald Prize and has been curated into some of Australia’s most prestigious exhibitions. He has received major commissions and worked with several esteemed Australian artists and designers. Thom’s work is held in numerous public and private collections.  

RSVP to the exhibition opening of Locomotive Dreams Imagination in Motion.

Studio A is a supported studio based in Sydney Australia that tackles the barriers artists with intellectual disability face in accessing conventional education, professional development pathways and opportunities needed to be successful and renowned visual artists. More broadly, within the community Studio A reduces stigma associated with people with disability and increases diversity and inclusion. Studio A offers the mainstream arts sector access to new artists and new opportunities for unique collaborations. 

Thom Roberts sees the world through a kaleidoscope lens. People, transport and infrastructure systems are interpreted as colourful multiples. 

A tangarra train is named Kylie and also perceived as the Gold Coast Tower. Thom himself identifies as the Country Link Express train and the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai. Thom’s unique perception of identities are also read through the equally particular channel of people’s ‘crowns’ (the spiral of hair on the top of a person’s head). Thom loves to peer into people’s crowns. There he finds millipedes, collie dogs and cows’ bodies. Using all this information Thom ceremoniously bestows people with new identities, and translates them, enigmatically, in painting. 

The photocopier is his other great muse and core to his process and practice. Beginning with images sourced online, Thom manipulates and duplicates the images and these form the basis of new works. “Blown up huge”, adorned with new features – new eyes, noses, moustaches – or animated using AR “magic”, Thom’s work makes the mundane magical. 

Thom works across painting, drawing, installation, animation and performance, and is an awarded and recognized contemporary Australian artist. In 2021 he was a finalist in the Archibald Prize and has been curated into some of Australia’s most prestigious exhibitions. He has received major commissions and worked with several esteemed Australian artists and designers. Thom’s work is held in numerous public and private collections. 

To further explore Locomotive Dreams, Thom has designed workshops to encourage the Hedland community to reimagine the landscape where we reside. Through critical observation and creativity, the same elements in our unique regional environment can be transformed into distinctive features that connects us to the sentiments of home. 

In these workshops, we will get creative with manipulating images of the landscape and infrastructure around us. We will begin with observing and capturing a range of emotions we feel living here in the Pilbara and follow that with manipulating it to adorn new features onto infrastructure around us.  

Let’s make the mundane magical!

The Locomotive Dreams Workshops are proudly supported by The Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries as part of the Pilbara disability and inclusion creative program.

Please direct any questions about the exhibition or related workshops to exhibition@thejunctionco.com.au