Thomas Christopher Haag
Thomas Christopher Haag was born in Wichita, KS, into a family as vast as the sea. He took chemistry and math classes for some reason at the University of Kansas, then dropped out and started hitchhiking and painting. He has lived in southern Mexico, Switzerland, India, Spain, the Pacific Northwest, and the great American Southwest. When he’s had to work, he’s been a commercial diver, propman, art director, low-volume smuggler, curator, and gallery owner. An avid muralist, both commissioned and not, he has painted buildings around the world under the names “Detach,” “Stove,” and “El Pituitario.” Using “reclaimed” paint taken from chemical disposal facilities, found wood, and discarded books, he constructs multilayered, collaged paintings and assemblages which reference ancient cultures and spiritual traditions. Homages to criminal saints, a bodhisattva telling a fart joke, events of divine banality and cosmic significance; a new mythology stripped of pretense or stuffed with it. thomaschristopherhaag.com.
