Art + Artists

Tom Thoune studied painting and ceramics at Central Piedmont Community College and was a McColl Center for Visual Art Artist-in-Residence in 2001. He is a recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Visual Artist Fellowship and received a 2002 Charlotte Mecklenburg Arts and Science Project Grant. Themes that Tom incorporates into his artwork range from the mundane acts of everyday life, portraiture, and travel to mythology, dreams, and spirituality. 

Thoune, a self-taught artist, relocated from Southern California to Charlotte in 1982 seeking refuge from urban life. Initially teaching painting at Central Piedmont Community College, he later transitioned to a 15-year career in the textile industry. Subsequently, Thoune dedicated a decade to a rewarding public art practice that includes works for a Charlotte Area Transit System light rail station, a Charlotte Mecklenburg police station, a Spirit Square wall, the Lee Dukes water treatment plant, among others. His current work attempts to illustrate an abstracted post-stroke memory of various shifts in reality within the hospital experiences, such as a sense of floating, altered proprioception, dimension challenges, and an intense hyperphantasia. His works have been showcased at many esteemed institutions including the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, McColl Center, Mint Museum, and The Center of the Earth Gallery in Charlotte. Thoune earned numerous artist grants and residencies and was in residence at McColl Center in 2001.