Tom Prochaska
Tom Prochaska (1945-) works in a range of media including painting, etchings, glass, and papier maché. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and his MFA from Pratt Institute. Prochaska taught at Pacific Northwest College of Art from 1988 until his retirement in 2012. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and the world, he has been in group exhibits including those at Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; Palos Verdes Art Center, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA; and the Art Gym, Marylhurst University, Marylhurst, OR. A solo exhibition of his prints in Lugano, Switzerland, was on view in the fall of 2018. His work can be found in museum collections throughout the Pacific Northwest. Prochaska has been the recipient of numerous awards including a 2015 Hallie Ford Fellowship. In 2023 he was given a retrospective exhibition “Music for Ghosts,” at the Hallie Ford Museum, Salem (OR).
“My work continues to be connected to the human form and psyche. The figure is my point of reference—whether the source is my diary, my memory, my fantasy, or drawn from life.… As free and open as that sounds, I know I’m tied to the spirit of Goya, James Ensor, Callot, and the compositions of Courbet and Manet. I have looked at art, taught and educated myself. In my early searches, while living in Georgia, the figure was more that of an animal: a dog or a pig. Perhaps I fancied my friends and myself as primitive, raw forces. As the years progress, the figure has matured into a more complete, complex being. Now it dances through relationships, introspection, violence, guilt, and fear. As my experiences, craft, composition, and formal qualities have matured, I hope (and I know) that the figurative surprises and little miracles have grown older, stranger, and richer.”
