Not all the Museum Highlights are by past members. This work is an example of one of our current members’ work. Tom Carmill’s Convergences XXI, which was acquired for the Museum by the Reading Foundation for Art, was on display in the Sir John Madejski Art Gallery, Reading Museum as part of the Patrons and Donors: Reading’s Art And How it Got Here… This exhibition demonstrated the many ways the Museum has acquired its impressive and wide-ranging collection of art throughout its history.

Convergences XXI is a pencil drawing on gesso board (a mixture of plaster of Paris and glue) and was made at a time when Tom Cartmill was exploring overlapping ideas about geological time and archaeology, the changing movements and textures found in nature and the layering of his memories. The drawing is a network of converging pencil lines. The work also explores an interest in visual perception that has underpinned his practice from early on. This work dates before Tom became a member of the Reading Guild of Artists in 2009.

Reading-based artist Tom Cartmill has spent much of his adult life overseas. He returned to the UK in 2003, settling first in Mortimer, where he had the beautiful Victorian-brick Old Fire Station as a studio for almost a decade. He is currently based in central Reading, with a medieval barn for a studio at Amners Farm, Burghfield.

Tom Cartmill’s long stints living in New Zealand, Spain, and Italy and travels through Asia, in particular, have greatly informed his work, and his years spent in Sicily and Spain, where he became interested in the Moorish heritage, have been particularly influential on his practice. He has exhibited widely, both in the UK and overseas, and has exhibited regularly at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, and at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.