About the artist:

Thomas Van Housen is a self-taught artist whose artworks incorporate freehand painting and computer-designed graphic elements in a technique he has developed and refined for more than a decade. His images stem from pop culture, the sciences, personal inspiration, and subjects commissioned by clients. Experiments in the studio led Van Housen to the discovery of the unique process by which he now creates the majority of his paintings. The process involves releasing laser toner from its paper and incorporating it into numerous layers of hand-painted acrylic paint. Although uniquely created, Van Housen’s paintings may resemble silkscreens. He also paints freehand in acrylic and oil; and uses the traditional silkscreen process in many of his works. In addition, Van Housen is frequently commissioned to create from photographs digital works, which are then rendered as inkjet on canvas prints. A former actuary and executive search consultant, Van Housen left corporate culture in 1990 to concentrate on painting. He sold 41 paintings to the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1996. The series, which toured the country for a year, was based on the Moonlight Tobacco Company logo and numerous cigarette pack designs. In 1997 he was selected by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to create a series of paintings on the Hale-Bopp Comet for the departing Chairman of the Grants Committee. For many years Van Housen’s paintings were featured at Gordon, the famed Chicago restaurant, where he sold over 60 works of art to numerous prominent Chicagoans and travelers from around the world. Included among his patrons is a former Chairman of the Board of the Museum of Contemporary Art. In the fifteen years to date, Van Housen has created and sold over 1,200 paintings. Born and raised in Syracuse, Nebraska, Van Housen graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics.