When it comes to innovation and forward-thinking visual art, Nick Thomm is way ahead of the game. Celebrating going against the grain, Nick explained, "Originally I wanted to do the opposite of everything that I was doing. I started with color and it just felt so good." We caught up with him mid-move from Melbourne to New York to talk about everything from his first business at sixteen-years-old to the inspiration behind his vibrant, graphic art.
Did you make a permanent move to New York or are you going to be back and forth?
I’ve been traveling and working nonstop between New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Chicago, and Miami, and decided to make a permanent move to New York. Everything’s been happening at once—I’m moving my studio here as well. I’ve almost always been in Australia, but since October of last year I haven’t done more than a month in one place, so I just was like, “Fuck, I better move all my shit.”
You're from Melbourne, what made you want to come to the States?
I was born in Melbourne. I spent most of my life there. I suppose about five years ago I came to the States and ever since I’ve been back and forth whenever projects come up. Once my work started getting a bit of attention, opportunities sort of naturally came up and that’s how the back and forth started.
How did you start getting attention? Just organically through shows you were doing in Australia?
I was doing graphic design in Melbourne at the time and then I basically got to a point where I had enough of doing that. I just took three months off to just make art and do something different. I purely just made work and thought, “I’m going to show it.” That got quite a bit of attention just online nad slowly just opened up the doors. People just came to me interested in doing projects.
Was that when you met Miley Cyrus?
Yeah, Miley’s awesome. She just followed me on Instagram and we started talking. Literally, two weeks later I was at her house putting up a mural for her. She’s a really inspiring person to be around—a full genius. She kind of inspired me to get over to the United States permanently. She’s been awesome to me.
Speaking of Miley, you seem very inspired by music in general. You can almost hear sound when you're looking at a Nick Thomm piece.
Music is a huge thing to me. All day in the studio I listen to it and I was actually just writing to someone explaining that music is what I do when I’m just fully stuck on art or a project. I’ve played guitar my whole life and now it’s more electronic. Music is that thing because it breaks up the process for me and I can get a fresh start on whatever I was working on.
That’s cool. I feel like you’ve kind of melded it all together. Do you prefer to create an interactive experience?
Yeah. I think it just feels natural. I was just doing a show so I was like, “Hey, why don’t I do a projection of this video I shot.” It wasn’t like a planned thing. It just was skills I picked up along the way that eventually pieced together.
Your art is highly graphic and digital—how do you balance it with more human elements?
I like blurring the lines between digital and real life, kind of trying to make it indistinguishable. I feel like everything these days is so fully handmade or fully digital and there is nothing in the middle there. That is my inspiration for what I’m making. I’m trying to find a line where it’s neither one nor the other, or at least your can’t tell whether it’s one or the other.
That’s so crazy because our lives are so digital and real, and mixed in that way. It’s weird that more people aren’t expressing that.
Yeah, it’s always really obvious how you’re consuming it. You’re looking at it on your phone or you’re looking at it in an art gallery. They are two very obvious things, but I guess a thing that hasn’t really been explored, and what I’m looking at it, is a part from what device you’re looking at and what’s the actual medium of the piece. I think that’s really interesting, having people view things. You can have someone looking at something made entirely by hand, but on the phone. It feels totally different than if you were looking at something in a gallery. I guess I just play with that idea a little bit.
As far as your style, did you draw a lot of it from graphic design?
The biggest part for me was that I spent a bunch of years basically exclusively doing graphic design. I was just obsessed with making it black and white and as clean as possible.
Yeah, when I saw it I was surprised that it was minimal and super, super clean.
Yeah, like super clean and I just had this weird thing with color and I couldn’t make it clean enough—in design it just didn’t work. That was when I had that three month break. Originally I wanted to do the opposite of everything that I was doing. I started with color and it just felt so good. I felt that I could say so much after trying to basically say nothing at all and build this black and white minimalist kind of thing. Doing the opposite just instantly felt natural to me. It was just like, “Hey, I like this.” I did it and as soon as I did it, it felt good so I just kept going
I love that. Doing the opposite felt right. A lot of people don’t really realize that.
Yeah, well you don’t. You kind of just go wherever you’re led. Then it takes a specific decision like, “Maybe this isn’t right. Just because I’ve ended up here, I’m not meant to be doing that.” Yeah. I think I’m lucky that I found that out. I could have easily kept going in the same direction. There was just one specific moment where I was like, “Fuck this. I’m just going to see what the other side is.” It worked out.
