Thom's Train Journey - Workshop with Thom Roberts

‘Thom’s Train Journey’ is an interactive artwork and live experience by five-time Archibald Prize finalist Thom Roberts. Along several tables will lay a graphic train made crafted from cardboard, across which Thom will work. He will select guests to have their portraits drawn and add them as ‘passengers’ by placing them in the train carriage windows.

Thom’s portraits are instantly recognisable, adorned with new features - extra eyes, noses, moustaches or ‘piano teeth’ – inviting us to see ourselves and our world anew. His deep love for transport infrastructure inspires this workshop, and has become a thematic thread for work throughout his 10-year professional career. He is even known to interpret people he meets as different train types, and identifies himself as the Country Link Express train.

Gallery-goers are encouraged to contribute to the evolving artwork by sitting with Thom and drawing their own self-portrait which they can sit inside the train and become part of Thom’s train journey. This process is a creative, playful and engaging activity that is suitable for people of all ages.

Thom works out of Studio A, a leading Australian supported studio for professional artists with intellectual disability. He is an awarded and recognised contemporary Australian artist, who works across painting, drawing, installation, animation and performance.