Reaching Out

Reaching Out, 2020


Thomas J Price’s practice engages with issues of representation and perception. Through sculpture, film and photography, Price invites us to look deeper into our interpersonal experiences and the mental processes that inform them. Price plays with methods of presentation, material, scale, and detail in order to challenge viewers’ expectations. His work confronts the possibilities of misinterpretation, which he often does through figuration that examines stereotypical fears and questions assumptions. These figurative sculptures function as psychological portraits, initially all hand sculpted with clay and now also incorporating digital sculpting techniques to blend various references. They are borne through an intense process of sculpting whether physically or virtually.


Price’s decision to almost exclusively depict black characters, individuals of African heritage, reflects his desire, born of his own experiences, to bring to the fore the inadequate and troubling representations of black people in today’s media, as well as throughout history. In this way their blackness is both a reminder of Price’s search for truth and a microcosm of how the societies in which we live construct the value systems that affect us all.


Reaching Out is Price’s first individual full figure representation of a woman, and one of very few public sculptures of a black woman in the UK (the first being a short distance from where Price grew up). This new work, depicting a young woman standing holding a mobile phone in both hands, continues Price’s theme of balancing experiences of isolation and connectedness, whilst acknowledging the different ways in which technology mediates our lives.

“I really hope we have some bravery and courage, and show a genuine desire to learn from and look into our past, and to incorporate those new understandings into our strategy for inclusion. We have an opportunity to create a more cohesive society if we choose to take it. Do we further ingrain the current system of choosing historical figures to represent the values we should aspire to? Or do we look for the commonalities we all share and embrace representations of those who have previously been stigmatised or invisible?

-TIME