Tom Motley
I developed this work at The Slade School of Art. It features a series of backpacks manufactured by an anonymous factory in China, which I communicated with through the commerce platform Temu - in addition, mounds of vacuum seal bags containing processed topsoil and 'Superlube' are arranged in relation to the custom products. This work exemplifies my interest in using contemporary modes of production: outsourcing, global supply chains, customisation, digital platforms, injection printing and digital culture to produce art. I am interested in using these 'networked objects' as elements of physical interventions and further affect production.
As I sit on the floor, an undulating mess. Wrap me up and hold me forever (3 movements towards) – 2026
The inception of this work was a photo of Justin Bieber from 2009, produced for a magazine. I then recreated it with the help of a commercial photographer; this was then overlaid with archival imagery and a dialable phone number. The image was sent to an advertising company who placed it on a digital billboard in Chorlton, Manchester where it became one of many cycling adverts for a period of 2 weeks. The phone number could be called by viewers of the work, after which an AI of Bieber's voice would redirect people to my website. This work is an intervention into the advertising medium- using the digital economy to produce an artwork. Bieber was a present idol during my childhood and early experience with mass culture. I was compelled by the idea of him as a figure of exploited youth, a feminine masculinity- there is an element of St Sebastian about him.
pissinginthewind/shoutingintothevoid – 2024
Sacademics and Antibommers (2025) takes the form of a script between 2 characters at a reading group discussing the work of Ted Krazinski, V and N. One takes the position of an accelerationist anti-civilisation extremist; the other, a dejected left-wing academic. The work’s production emerged from the process of importing the twitter account and manifesto of Natalie Runpow, The Abundant Life Christian School shooter to produce a character with which I would be able to converse. The purpose was to produce a work that explores the themes that not only Rumpow's and Krazinski's work deals with, but further their existence as cultural figures and objects.
SACADEMICS and anibommers – 2025
no put me back (for solipsisms and ceremony) (2025) is physical installation with sound elements.The space is denoted by a welded steel structure placed atop printed fabric, which held a pool of lube used for animal husbandry. A chain attached to the structure leads to a small, rectangular box which moans through the use of an internal contact speaker.- furthering the presence of use and embodiment.I have been seeing my work as a process of misuse - this speciality was furthered by the addition of lube - an industrial material, similar to steel. I am interested in how the placement and arrangement of cultural artifacts, objects and images (particularly in relation to materials and physical forms) can shape the reading of a work, relaying the themes and mood from the 'objects' within the artwork and reconstituting its meaning on both ends of that process. If someone is unaware of the reference points this opens the possibility of cultural detritus existing purely within the space of form.
no put me back (for solipsisms and ceremony) – 2025
Of having hands and containers (2026) takes the form of a fragment - an aspect of a reality - siting uncomfortably between a space and an object. The work consists of a series of carved wood pieces, resembling floor boards, wrapped in a custom printed fabric - featuring a duplicated, blown-up image of Ted Krasinski's cabin, further encased within a polyurethane resin and arranged. The image cocoon obliterates the piece’s object-hood, transfiguring a formally dumb object into the ineffably intangible. I’m interested in how a work can transmorphs time and space into a fragmented object that exists as a crisis itself - an ersatz domestic form, sitting in relation to the viewer, engaging them as an alternating self within the mass production systems of hegemonic reality.
Of having hands and containers – 2026
feel – 2025
a poem by Tom motley
wl (an adaptation) – 2024
Close to the nymphs but not quite (the Nancy cube), 2024 is a site-specific installation, exhibited at Manchester Art Gallery. I was invited by the Black Wall Collective to present work within the permanent collection as part of the Genesis: who are we? exhibition. Functioning as an intervention, the piece sits in contrast to the mythic and religious narratives present within the gallery's pre-Raphaelite painting section. The work is a dystopic site- the romance, idealism and ornate gold leaf of the 19th century movement juxtaposed by my industrial aesthetic. This work features the image of a witch, a recurring figure in my practice. She functions as a proletarian icon, an entity trans-morphing through time, not subservient to power, an alternative.
Near the Nymps but not quite (the nancy cube) – 2024
/wired reading (still) – 2024

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