Thomas Lail

Thomas Lail is a Capital Region native and holds an MFA from the University at Albany and a BS in Studio Art from The College of Saint Rose. Since 1993, Lail has taught drawing and painting at Hudson Valley Community College, where he is Professor of Fine Arts and a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award. Lail has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally including New York, Cleveland, Houston, and Montreal, as well as Slovakia, London, Belgium and Abu Dhabi among others. He performs and records with the experimental music duo soundBarn and the multi-member Location Ensemble. Lail publishes poetry and experimental writing through soundBarn Press and has written numerous reviews and essays including two catalogue essays on the work of Robert Longo.

Thomas Lail's works examine our persistent strivings and ideological failings in pursuit of a better world. His works reference fragments from images of hippie communes, high modern architecture, protesting crowds, Edenic floral patterns, flags, borders, and cultivated gardens often reproduced or fragmented to degraded obscurity. In suggesting both the fleeting physical presence and philosophical space of such gestures, Lail’s works consider the once-dreamed-future and the tumultuous moments that give rise to such dreams.