tom Burckhardt

music

Tom first encountered Balinese gamelan while on a long trip through South East Asia in 1987. Previously with a background in playing drums in rock bands and an interest in building percussion instruments he was primed and eager to learn more. Upon returning to New York he heard of Dharma Swara which was just forming at the Indonesian Consulate. He has played with DS ever since, with a bit of a break between 2006 and 2018. He spent several months in Bali over several years in the late 80’s and early 90’s studying with Gusti Ngurah Sukra of the venerable Peliatan village group Gunung Sari, bicycling all over Indonesia and drawing people he met and sights along the way.

His main profession is as an artist, and graduated with a BFA in painting from SUNY Purchase in 1986 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture that same year. He has been exhibiting since 1992 at various NYC galleries such as Tibor De Nagy Gallery, Pierogi and Caren Golden Fine Art, and the Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco CA. His most recent solo show of paintings was at Gregory Adams Gallery in NYC in 2022. He participated in the 2016 Kochi Muziris Bienalle in Kerala, India and that installation piece, “Studio Flood” was shown at the Pierogi Gallery, NYC in September 2017 and CMCA in Maine during Summer 2018. He was a resident faculty at Skowhegan in 2007 and currently teaches part time at SUNY Purchase in the Painting Department.