Ross + Kramer is pleased to present Thomas Dillon’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery, entitled Coming Home Early, opening September 17, 2024 at the gallery’s Miami Beach location. The exhibition, composed of 12 large-scale paintings, will be on view through October 19, 2024.
"In February of 2020, I had a psychic event. It was divine. It was terrifying. It was a recursive feedback loop of my thoughts projecting and penetrating my waking reality. I had experienced it before under different circumstances, but not like this. I had broken the simulation. I was glitching.
This event took its shape during a short vacation to Miami Beach with my wife. Miami Beach was an entity, like the Dickian concept of the Artifact or the gnostic concept of the Demiurge, the environment morphed and shifted its shape and tone as I attempted to comprehend its structure. One moment my reality was a euphoric heaven on earth, and the next a dystopian hellscape of paranoia and confusion. My wife, who was with me on the trip and had witnessed a previous psychic event that required hospitalization, convinced me to board a 3am flight back to Philadelphia two days early. We did, and by the grace of God we made it back home without human intervention. The event persisted for a few more weeks and I slowly integrated myself back into consensus reality.
This particular type of psychic event is often diagnosed in the present age as a manic episode with psychosis. Though the designation does not matter, the core of an event like this for the experiencer is to reconcile the self. To be born again into a new circuit. I acquiesced, and shed my material nihilistic atheistic worldview to one in which the divine existed. I had become a believer. I reclaimed God.
The exhibited paintings in this show are not mine. They do not belong to me. They are not my images. They are not my ideas. They are creations that exist in a space between the imaginary and the Real; the space where forms remain etheric or hardened from consensus thought. These works blur the line of concrete human form through a lens of abstraction. They depict the mind and its abstractions either in the isolated individualized human form or the human form projecting into the presumed Real as it struggles to make sense of its environment. These paintings are mirrors. They are finished when I see the reflection of humanity in them.
During my psychic event in Miami, I experienced a moment of the palpable transcendent bliss of heaven. I told my wife that we should just stay there forever. It was not possible—I had to go home. I now understand Miami was not my heaven but just the illusion of one. Of the idealized form revealing itself to me as a show of its existence. God lifting the veil. These paintings are an offering to Miami, a closing of the circuit, a symbolic return to home."
– Thomas Dillon
Thomas Dillon (b. 1986, Staten Island, NY) is a self-taught contemporary artist based in Philadelphia, PA. Dillon uses non-traditional materials such as house paint, sticks, cardboard tubes, and his own hands to create vibrant and dynamic large-scale paintings. He has participated in art fairs such as The Armory Show and NADA New York. Most recently, Dillon’s work has been exhibited at SHRINE (New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA), and LA BIBI Gallery (Mallorca, Spain).
“Coming Home Early” will be on view September 17–October 19, 2024 at Ross + Kramer Miami Beach. The gallery is located at 1910 Alton Road, Miami Beach, FL 33139 and is open Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–6pm. For more information, images, or to schedule a viewing appointment, please contact .
