Tom Butler | Two Coats of Paint
August 29, 2025 | Mark Wethli
Tom Butler’s Emotional Twilight Zone
Technical drawing – the kind we see in plans, elevations, and orthogonal perspectives – is not the obvious choice to explore feelings of isolation, sadness, or loss. For over a century, the painterly gesture has been the primary signifier of these emotions, while drafting has been the province of the designer and the engineer. Given this disparity, Tom Butler’s choice of this medium, in his show “I Became a Room” at Sarah Bouchard Gallery in Woolwich, Maine, is a surprising one; not for its own sake but the result of a creative process that transforms the art of technical drawing in unexpected and meaningful ways. Using red drawing pencils, rather than graphite or ink, Butler creates lines and patterns that are as genteel as a nineteenth-century calling card yet as sanguine as a fresh tattoo. This subliminal undertone is expressed in the delicacy of Butler’s touch and the decorum of his technique. Occasional shifts in line weight bring to mind the disciplined yet sensual lines in a Hans Bellmer drawing, introducing an implicit eroticism in the lines themselves.
