Inman Gallery is pleased to present Tommy Fitzpatrick: Elsewhere, on view March 28 – May 9, 2026. Please join us for an exhibition walkthrough with the artist on Saturday, March 28 at 1pm, followed by an opening reception 2–4pm. This event celebrates concurrent exhibitions by Maggie Hills and Jim Richard, with all three artists in attendance.
For decades, architecture has been Tommy Fitzpatrick’s central subject matter, looking to the built environment as rich terrain to reflect the impermanence of human ambition. Elsewhere presents recent paintings in his latest ‘Dwellings’ series. Inspired by American vernacular architecture, his work explores the home as a built structure, a refuge and a shelter, through muscular paint application and sensitive color study.
Continually engaging the contradiction between flat pattern and illusionistic depth, Fitzpatrick uses architectural methods, tools, and materials in the studio to harmonize his process and subject matter. He begins by pouring acrylic paint onto the canvas – not unlike pouring cement – then using trowels and spatulas to shape, cut, and disrupt the congealed surface. Heavy-body acrylic polymers reinforce the paint’s structural integrity so that the paint itself protrudes in relief, creating peaks and divots that cast their own shadows and highlights. What may once have been roofs, windows, or glass now exist in an impasto ambiguity.
In years past, Fitzpatrick used computer-aided design (CAD) software as the foundation for his compositions. However, these latest ‘Dwellings’ embrace a more analog workflow through freehand drawings and color paper collages. For each painting, Fitzpatrick creates several color studies using Sherwin-Williams brand house-paint color samples before selecting one palette to develop into the final work. The nested rectangles, which are read as abstractions of windows or doorways, harken the legacy of Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square as generative color studies.
Streamlined and elemental, the works on view mark an important formal shift for the artist. While past work often depicted specific (and often renowned) buildings, the ‘Dwellings’ instead show a simple pitched-roof, residential house. The image is familiar, nostalgic even, and meditative when viewed serially, one home after another. Grounded in their solitude, these homes prompt us to look inward, asking where do we belong?
Fitzpatrick writes:
The home, as a built structure, is one of the most important places for humanity. It functions as refuge and shelter—a means of protection and survival. It is something people can universally understand, conjure, and project their own feelings and memories onto. Ultimately, these works are images of houses, but I hope the viewer feels invited to inhabit them—metaphorically entering the image as they would their own place of residence, or even the memory of one they once knew, into a space that carries the comfort of home.
Tommy Fitzpatrick (b. 1969, Dallas, TX) holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of Texas and an MFA in Painting from Yale University School of Art. Recent solo exhibitions include: Homescapes, Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto (2024); Dwellings, and Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Los Angeles (2023) and Shape Shifting, Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York (2023). Recent group exhibitions include: Houses to Homes, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio (2025); Do you really believe that?, Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Fort Worth; and Texas Target: Studio Practice, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Cristi (2024). His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Art Museum of South Texas, Texas A&M University, and the Menil Collection. He is a Professor and Head of Painting at Texas State University. Fitzpatrick lives in San Antonio, Texas.
