Tom Giwi

Tom Giwi’s work builds on an evolving visual language, with each new piece growing out of previous drawings. This creates a sense of continuity across their practice while allowing forms to shift and change. They are drawn to work that feels in progress — art that invites curiosity and leaves space for imagination.

Material clarity is essential to their process: metal should look and feel like metal, paper like paper. Surfaces aren’t obscured but revealed. Their background in design shows through in clean, refined compositions that feel contemporary and visually accessible.

Influences from childhood — cartoons, anime, toys, machines — quietly inform their work, not as references, but as emotional starting points. They aren’t aiming to replicate those aesthetics or work within illustration. Instead, they channel the energy, excitement, and sense of wonder those things sparked. The result is work that’s visually sharp, structurally considered, and open-ended in meaning.

While not created for a specific audience, the work aims to connect beyond the art world — to anyone willing to look closely, even those unfamiliar with or intimidated by abstract art. It remains playful and strange while asking to be taken seriously on its own terms.

Tom Giwi
tomgiwistudio@gmail.com
@tomgiwi_studio

Exhibtions

EBC WIP (2023) St Annes House
EBC Big Summer Blowout (2023) Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft
Metal Is Bendy (2024) D Unit
In Betweens (2025) Southwark Park Gallery
Rites of Ruins (2025) Peckham Safehouse

Education

Royal College of Art (RCA) MA Print, 2025
Day School (FKA East Bristol Contemporay Day School), 2023
University of the West of England (UWE) BA Illustration, 2020

04.

An Every Day Thing

Reclaimed Photopolymer plate, Plywood, Translucent Acryclic, Strip LED, Metal Hinges, Magnets

2025

'An Every Day Thing' celebrates the imperfections in objects, and the beauty surfaces and materials garner over time. An object's life does not end when it has fulfilled its original purpose. It also questions the idea of the 'everyday thing'. Objects hold completely different meanings to different people. To those (artists and crafts-people) who seek to find beauty and utility in everything; the 'everyday thing' is without limit The scrapped printing plate, an old palette, off-cuts and broken machinery. All of it has a potential purpose and a beauty either already visible or waiting to be revealed.