149. Tom Mead - Keeping Warm

2026
Acrylic on board
12 x 17 x 0.5 cm

Tom Mead (b. 1997) is a figurative artist living and working on the London/Essex border.

His practice is an ongoing exploration of existentialism and saudade through the lens of working-class adulthood. Drawing on themes of memory, isolation, humour, and psychological tension, Mead creates uncanny painted scenes that blur distinctions between realism and artifice, intimacy and performance.

Central to his process is a handmade theatrical approach rooted in childhood fascinations with miniatures, stop-motion animation, and cardboard construction. Mead builds crude sets populated with printed cut-outs of figures and objects, manipulating them into surreal arrangements before translating these staged environments into paintings. The resulting works destabilise perceptions of scale, flatness, and spatial logic, creating psychologically charged images that hover between reality and fiction.

Mead completed a BFA in Fine Art: Painting at Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London, London, UK (2016–2019).

Selected exhibitions include A Selection of Works by Tom Mead at City of London Cemetery (2025–present); the Real Art School Anniversary Exhibition at Camden Open Air Gallery (2026); FLAT LIFE at New House Art Space, Guildford (2026); FLAVA at The Handbag Factory, London (2025); the Cass Art Prize at Copeland Gallery, London (2025); the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize online exhibition (2025, 2023, 2021 & 2019); Contemporary British Portrait Painters at The Department Store, Brixton (2025); The Space In-Between in Eygalières, France (2025); the Green & Stone Summer Exhibition, London (2024); Semi-Conscious at Islington Art Factory (2023); DISASSOCIATE at The Art Space, Cass Art Islington (2023); the London Graphic Centre Art Prize, Covent Garden (2023); the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition at Mall Galleries (2023); A Material World at Liliya Gallery, London (2022); Portrait Artist of the Year at Compton Verney (2022); TAKING SHAPE at Espacio Gallery, London (2021); the Art of London Augmented Gallery Trail at The Wolseley, London (2021); SkyArts Lockdown Portraits (2021); QUOTIDIAN at Blanco Gallery (2021); the ING Discerning Eye (2020); Clyde & Co Art Award (2019/20); Wimbledon College of Arts Degree Show (2019); Portrait Artist of the Year 2019 at Clarendon Fine Art, Mayfair; For Love or Money at Copeland Gallery (2019); and Faces & Places at 5th Base Gallery (2018).

Awards include shortlistings for Artist Portrait Artist of the Year (2026), the Cass Art Prize (2025), and the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize (2019, 2021, 2023 & 2025). In 2023 he won First Prize in the London Graphic Centre Art Prize and was a finalist in Portrait Artist of the Year in 2019.

His work is held in the Roundhouse collection, London, UK.