The artist
Tom Colaux
I seek to make visible what moves through us.
I studied photography before discovering in painting a more instinctive, freer language. Poetry naturally extended this exploration. Today, these three practices are in constant dialogue. Their forms may differ, but they share the same intention: to explore what lives within us.
I work without sketches. Faces emerge, colours respond to one another, and words surface like fragments of thought. I like to combine techniques, materials and structures, allowing each work to find its own balance between the visible and the invisible.
I do not seek to illustrate an idea. I seek to give presence to emotions, inner tensions and what connects us without always being named. Each canvas is an encounter between instinct, memory and the gaze.
My journey
An instinctive practice spanning image, painting and poetry.
My artistic journey began with images. After studying photography, I worked for several years in the audiovisual field, developing an attentive eye for light, composition and human presence.
Painting soon became a necessity. It offered me a freedom I could find nowhere else. Poetry joined this process, not as an explanation of the works, but as another breath, another way of inhabiting emotion.
Today, I develop a practice in which painting, photography, writing and performance meet. Each discipline nourishes the others and contributes to the same exploration: transforming the intimate into a universal experience.
My work is now represented by galleries in Belgium and France, exhibited in several European cities and gradually entering private collections internationally. Despite this evolution, my approach remains unchanged: to create with sincerity, make room for the unexpected and offer a space in which everyone can recognise something of themselves.
Manifesto
Creating to understand what moves through us.
I do not seek to provide answers. I seek to open spaces where everyone can recognise an emotion, a memory or a part of themselves.
For me, painting, photography and poetry are three ways of exploring the same subject: the human experience. They do not explain one another; they respond to one another. Rather than telling a story, they seek to awaken a sensation.
My texts do not accompany my works as captions. They extend them: fragments of thought, sometimes silent, sometimes raw, that leave the viewer free to interpret.
I believe a work is never finished when it leaves the studio. It truly begins when it meets the person looking at it.
Studio
Everything begins here.
My studio is where I experiment, doubt and erase as much as I build. The works never begin with a fixed idea, but with an ongoing dialogue between painting, photography, writing and time.
I allow materials to respond to one another, words to appear and faces to emerge without restraint. What interests me is not controlling every gesture, but remaining open to what happens.
It is in this space that emotions take form before continuing their journey in the eyes of those who encounter them.
Performances
Creating in public and letting the moment decide.
My performances are living spaces of creation where painting, poetry and presence meet. Nothing is entirely written in advance. I make room for the unexpected, for silence, exchanges and the emotions born from meeting the audience.
Each performance is unique. It extends my studio practice by revealing the gesture, the doubt, the creative impulse and the birth of a work. What interests me is not only the result, but the path that leads to it.
For me, creating in public means sharing a sincere moment in which art ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.
Timeline
- Since 2025 Representation by galleries in Belgium and France, exhibitions across Europe and international development.
- February 14, 2025 First group exhibition in Paris.
- 2022 Beginning of an intensive painting practice alongside photography and writing.
- 2019–2024 Founding and development of CLXpictures, an agency specialising in photography and audiovisual production.
- 2016 Publication of Le Pouly by Éditions Jacques Flament.
- 2015 Beginning of my photographic journey and creation of the Le Pouly project.
