Tom Marino
Toledo, Ohio
Artist Biography
Tom Marino holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Michigan Technological University (Houghton), where he also pursued graduate work. He is a longtime member and former President of the Toledo Potters’ Guild, located at the Toledo Botanical Garden (Ohio), as well as an Independent member of Toledo Federation of Art Societies (Ohio). Marino has worked in clay for over thirty years, combining his background in chemistry, personal studies and interest in science and contemporary art to inform his ceramic aesthetic.
Marino’s award-winning work is included in many permanent museum collections including the Canton Museum of Art (Ohio), the Crocker Museum of Art (Sacramento, California), the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA, Pomona, California), the Zanesville Museum of Art (Ohio), the Block Museum (Evanston, Illinois), the Midwest Museum of American Art (Elkhart, Indiana), Racine Art Museum (Wisconsin), as well as the permanent collection of Ceramics Monthly (Westerville, Ohio). Marino’s ceramic work has also been accepted into the collection of the Dalai Lama.
He has exhibited regularly in the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio), Art on the Mall at The University of Toledo (Ohio) (First Place 2016, Best of Show 2022) and the juried Crosby Festival of the Arts at Toledo Botanical Garden, in which he has participated annually since 1980. He exhibits nationally and internationally in venues such as Hawk Galleries (Columbus, Ohio), the Ohio Designer Craftsmen Best Of at the Ohio Craft Museum (Ohio) and SOFA Chicago (Illinois). Among his many juried honors, Marino received Best of Show for his ceramic diptych, Crucible Series: Sole e Luna, in the 2022 TFAS 100+5: Juried Regional Exhibition at the Center for the Visual Arts on the Toledo Museum of Art campus (Ohio). In 2019, his work was selected for exhibition in the 47th International Glass Invitational Award Exhibition at Habatat Galleries (Royal Oak, Michigan). Additionally, in 2016, he enjoyed a solo exhibition at Zanesville Museum of Art and, in 2017, his work appeared at the 11th International Ceramics Competition (Mino, Japan), before being short-listed for a touring exhibition by that museum.
Marino’s Crucible Series and Reliquary Series are among his many works to be shown at 20 North Gallery in stable representation. Throughout 20 North Gallery’s history, Marino’s ceramic artworks have been shown in numerous exhibits, including Painting and Ceramics (2001), Tenth Year Exhibit (2003), Crosby Award Winners (2009), The Grant Collection (2017), TFAS100+3: Juried Regional Exhibition (2020), Treasures in Residence (2021) and later, in 2021, in the 3-person exhibit, The Alchemist’s Dream, for which he was also Guest Curator. Tom Marino was a dear friend of 20 North Gallery’s first Art Director, the late Peggy Grant, and as a testament to his great fondness for her, Marino graciously fulfilled 20 North Gallery’s commission to create Peggy Grant’s funerary urn in 2019.
To learn more about Tom Marino’s artistic career and professional history, visit his exhibit page at the Zanesville Museum of Art website at zanesvilleart.org.
Artist Statement
Crucible Series: Luna
Crucible Series: Luna interprets the alchemical word and moon symbol for silver, a noble metal that represents a metaphysical quest for transformation and enlightenment. The silver mirror invites the viewer to reflect and forge their own discoveries whether personal, communal or scientific.
Moonrise
Moonrise depicts space, time and the tides of transformation. Mysterious and ever-changing, the moon’s silver light offers solace during the night while beckoning the coming day. Each time of day embraces the cycle of the other: daytime has shadows and nighttime has moonshine, the sun’s reflected light.
Spacetime
Spacetime explores my interest in science and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity which weaves space, time and gravity into a continuum, a concept that revolutionized our understanding of reality. The three closed forms represent three-dimensional space, while their hourglass shape depicts time, the fourth dimension. The shorter hourglasses portray both time dilation (slowing down) and length contraction, a relativistic phenomena of speed and gravity. And gravity is the result of mass and energy causing spacetime to curve, imagined also by the hourglass shape. Traveling through spacetime is silver light, tracing gravity.
Winter Light
Winter Light meditates on a season of stillness, solitude and reflection. Even so, the sun’s alliance with winter offers future renewal, growth and awakening. Japanese sumi art and the alchemy of light inform Winter Light.
Tom Marino’s previous 20 North Gallery exhibits:
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419-241-2400 or info@20northgallery.com