Chase The Sun With Artist and Photographer Tom Newhouse
A year's worth of sunrises has culminated in a collection of 365 colourful paintings
When we last caught up with Leeds Arts University graduate Tom in March 2022, he’d spent every day of the previous year as an early bird, capturing the sunrise from locations in Yorkshire and the North East on his camera to reconnect with the world around him. Tom had a vision of creating 365 paintings that were all colour representations of sunrises – and decided he’d document every sunrise of the year during a digital detox.
Following years of creative exploration, Tom has now completed his collection, 365SUNRISE. Each painting captures the fleeting beauty of dawn, reflecting themes of nature, mindfulness, and the transformative power of everyday moments.
‘Each piece in this project was an opportunity to explore new possibilities and I think that mindset and approach kept the project fresh and exciting,’ Tom says. ‘I was working on the same size board everyday for three years, but if you stick to a rigid process, it can get very boring very quickly, and soon enough you could feel like a fabricator just producing the same thing over and over again.
'After witnessing 365 of them consecutively, Tom feels a sunrise has the potential to make any location look beautiful and picturesque'
‘The process involved taking the colours from the sunrise which I’d documented in note form then following a systematic approach, I worked my way through the colours methodically from top to bottom on how the sunrise worked. Over time that process became more intuitive which allowed more spontaneity in guiding where the painting might go. My aim wasn’t to reproduce any of the sunrises, I just wanted to capture the essence of them. That essence is spontaneous, random, unique and only happens once. When I allowed that ethos of how to paint to guide me, it opened up infinite possibilities.’
Tom’s 10th December sunrise is a personal favourite (you can see it labelled below). ‘That’s because when I was painting it, I felt like I’d unlocked a new dimension of possibility. It’s a cosmic landscape,’ he says. ‘None of the paintings are pre-planned so I never know what they’re going to look like. When my hand goes to the palette and back to the canvas, there’s no judgement, and I’m not thinking about what I’m doing. When I created this painting it felt like I’d tapped into my subconscious. I like to call it subconscious projection. When you’re driving your car you enter autopilot, and that’s the level I found myself in. For the first hour I was aware of what I was doing, but after 16 hours of painting I’d look at the board thinking “I have no idea where that’s come from”. Philosophically, this painting opened my mind and brought about deeper questions about creativity and art. It’s otherworldly and when I finished it, I had such an excitement about it.’
After witnessing 365 of them consecutively, Tom feels a sunrise has the potential to make any location look beautiful and picturesque. ‘In the first four months of the project a lot of my locations were city based because I didn’t have a car at that time so I walked to all the locations,’ he says. ‘When I did get a car, I never went back to the city because of the difference in atmosphere (in terms of soundscape and nature). I do find that if I’m going to see a sunrise, I do like to go somewhere way out in the middle of nowhere where it’s completely silent. There’s not a soul around. It’s just you, the sunrise and nature. It’s ultra-peaceful at that time in the morning.’
It’s clear Tom’s digital detox proved beneficial to his creative process, but also his mind. ‘I think that work should come before sharing but these days, in a digital age, the two processes are kind of intertwined,’ he explains. ‘Personally, I think they should absolutely be separate. It’s kind of like dancing in a room by yourself – as soon as someone enters the room, you’d change the way you act. A lot of artists tend to be quite introverted, and when you allow too many people in on the creative process, it can have a limitation on how much you’re willing to put out there or explore.’
On reflection, his advice to budding artists is to ‘practice, practice, practice’. ‘Put the hours of work in, look at what you’ve achieved, and at the end of that you can focus on the external stuff,’ he adds. ‘You and your art should come first before the immediacy of sharing things online.’
Now moving onto the next phase of the project, Tom looks forward to launching his website which will house the entire collection and limited edition prints which he hopes will support his future plan to exhibit the works. A year’s worth of notes also means Tom plans to release a book and a film to support the project. ‘I’m still an evolving artist, and I just want to keep working on myself and do good things in my lifetime,’ he says. ‘I’ll hopefully inspire others to connect with nature and disconnect from devices, and maybe find something in their own interpretation of what the project means. How other people might connect with the project is such an open concept.
‘What I’ve learned is that practice makes progress, not perfection. Each moment of creation feels like the best of your ability at that time and I think that growth comes from staying humble and open-minded. It’s about embracing where you are now and striving to improve. If you have an open mind and a willingness to evolve, it keeps the possibilities endless. Each painting becomes this super exciting thing where you have no idea how it might eventually look.
‘The project taught me to value the journey over the destination, as cliche as that sounds, and to approach each different painting with curiosity and grace. What I took from the project was how much you can evolve from constant practice. This is an innate quality that we as humans have – when you start something for the first time you’re a beginner, and when you work endless amounts of time on something you get a lot better at it. In life, there isn’t a visual diary that shows you how far you’ve come; the beauty of 365SUNRISE is that it acts as a visual diary from one to 365 of growth.’
Visit tomnewhouse.art to stay up to date with the project.
