In a way, art has always been my way of problem-solving, of getting through situations, of finding my response to things, so to imagine doing something else makes me panic a little bit.
Tom BurrI do think of my work as being quintessentially American in that it could only have emerged in that particular situation that I find myself. I feel that a lot of my work is working on problems that might be specifically American problems, but not exclusively.
Tom BurrLonging is the fullest sense of desire; it's the most deeply felt kind of desire. I think the most interesting artwork comes out of some sense of longing. It could be called dissatisfaction; it could be called distance. There are many kinds of wanting to get closer to something else, whether that is an idea, a body, a place. Longing is also one of the conditions people approach reading, visual art, or music with - it's to satisfy that sense of longing. It's part of my job, on some level, to grapple with that notion.
Tom BurrThe internet is like a surround system, a landscape at its most benign, a closed system of surveillance and self-surveillance at its more sinister. Something we can no longer imagine an outside of.
Tom BurrI had a lot of fantasies about being an architect when I was young, and I think I still do. On a visceral level, I'm very intellectually and emotionally attracted to acknowledging how space functions in our lives, both in terms of pleasure and in terms of control, and in terms of all those factors that form a life. I'm also very anxious and maybe repulsed by how superficial that whole dialogue can become.
Tom Burr