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Article IndexBY PAT SUMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
N.J. ARTISTS
Llamas from a New Jersey farm are pictured high in the Andes of South America. Two women singing their hearts out under a full moon had actually performed impromptu at a band concert in Maine. And a couple people conversing on the street never existed at all.
The subjects shown in Tom Chesar’s paintings are often space and time travelers. And yet they look so realistic – which is exactly what the artist intends.
“It starts with something real,” he explains, “then I distill it through my own psyche” for what eventually becomes his image. That accounts for the llamas’ relocation to a place where they’re free and contentedly being hand-fed. And there were no people near the Lambertville storefronts till Chesar decided they were needed.
He cites “trusting his inner consciousness as a source of subject matter” in his artist’s statement about the three concepts underlying most of his paintings.
Because what he paints is recognizable – farm buildings, a train, a country landscape -- Chesar’s work might be described as figurative, even though his images are often amalgams of things he’s seen and elements he has imagined. So, then, “figurative-plus?”
However it may be styled, Chesar’s art has long spoken to viewers. He’s too modest to say so, but his resume is dotted with bests of show, patrons and purchase awards and first prizes among more than 70 recognitions.
Soft-spoken, deliberative and self-effacing, he’s artful at leading a visitor down conversational paths having more to do with his teachers and the artists he admires than with himself and his own body of work. But sitting in his home studio in Ringoes, with his easel and sketchbooks nearby and one wall filled with his paintings, it’s easy enough to re-focus on him.
Another trait invariably mentioned when Chesar is: his niceness. At openings and exhibitions, he’s the artist who’s dependably “accessible,” just as his work is. Seeming to pay genuine attention to the person he’s speaking with, he also sprinkles conversations with “thank you,” and his laugh is worth working for.
An only child, Chesar was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Lower Bucks County. Now 74 and retired from the New Jersey Department of Labor, he has lived in or near Ringoes for almost 50 years – all of them with his wife, Joanne, also retired. “Teddy Bear,” a lively gray Shih Tzu, completes the family picture these days.
