Andrew Edlin Gallery is pleased to present: Tom Duncan : A Retrospective - The Art of War and Peace October 19 - November 30, 2002. This marks Duncan’s first solo exhibit in New York since 1996. Many of the works shown will travel directly from the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore where the artist was featured in the yearlong exhibit The Art of War and Peace: Toward an End to Hatred.

Tom Duncan’s memory pieces recreate or refer to real-life events from his youth growing up in Scotland during World War II, and in New York City where he arrived in 1947 at the age of eight. Some of these are actual episodes from the past, like the time he and his mother were strafed by a Nazi pilot. Other works reflect a childlike, wondrous view of the New World. “Dedicated to Coney Island” is an 8’ x 7.5’ x 7’ installation that recreates the amusement park replete with moving subway trains and roller coasters, and a spinning Ferris wheel.

Many of the artist’s works look like homemade versions of a Marx Playset from the 1950’s or a detailed landscape borrowed from a Lionel train set display. Some, in fact, utilize vintage found objects such as metal toy iers, cars, trucks and trains. When appropriated toys do not suffice, he fabricates miniature sculpted and painted clay cast in plaster or fired terra cotta figures for use in his glorified tableaus, assemblages and reliefs. To lend his works an appearance of age, he sprinkles dirt and sand on top of his painted surfaces and then applies an oil wash to give them a corroded, rusted
or weathered look.

Duncan has had his art exhibited widely in New York City including at the Drawing Center, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, and G.W. Einstein , in New Jersey at the Noyes Museum (solo exhibit), and in Boston at the Genovese/Sullivan Gallery. His work is in numerous public collections including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Library of Congress, and the Box Art Museum in Hoghem, Sweden.