TOM CURTIS – the digital artist from Buckinghamshire who brings children’s drawings to life through the creative Instagram hit THINGS I HAVE DRAWN.
Tom Curtis is a digital artist and creative director but is best known as the ‘dad’ behind the instagram account @thingsihavedrawn, which imagines a world in which the things kids draw are real.
Despite now having nearly a million followers on Instagram, Things I Have Drawn started in 2015 as a fun little project between Tom and his 6-year-old son, Dom. Noticing the bizarre and fantastical animals Dom was drawing, Tom had a simple thought: what if kids have got it right? What if the things they are drawing do actually look like that? What if it’s us adults not seeing the world properly? And so, he set about painstakingly transforming some of Dom’s doodles into real-looking photographs, keeping the form exactly as Dom had created them. After sharing the hilarious and sometimes disturbing images online, they soon went viral – appearing on TV, in newspapers, and on websites all around the globe.
Over the next year, Dom’s younger brother, Alistair, had joined in the fun, with his own unique imagination and drawing style. But it wasn’t long before Things I Have Drawn had turned into something much much bigger, with parents sending their kid’s drawings in from all over the world.
In the past eight years, Tom has created hundreds of creatures, vehicles, and people – working with the likes of Gucci and the WWF in the process. Although Dom and Al are now too old to be contributing their own drawings, Tom’s got plenty of old ones in the drawer to add to the many more being submitted each month from talented young artists everywhere.
An art graduate from the U.K., Tom lives with his sons and wife, Becky, in a village in Buckinghamshire. Alongside Things I Have Drawn, he also works as an advertising creative director in London.
At the Old Power Station, a selection of favorites from the art concept are shown, in an exhibition which really evokes both joy and laughter!
Exhibition period: May 1st – September 29
Instagram: @thingsihavedrawn
Website: www.thingsihavedrawn.com
