Thomas Abate Marco (b. 1953, New York City) attended The School of Architecture at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, from 1971 -1974.
He received his B.F.A. (1990) and M.F.A. (1992) working with architectural elements and civil engineering proposals at The School of Visual Arts in New York City; during graduate school he worked as assistant manager and technical adviser to undergraduate and graduate students at the school's Sculpture Center at 30 West 17th Street. He became the center's Director of Sculpture Operations in his last graduate semester in 1992, and among those responsibilities he was an informal instructor to undergraduates as well as a liaison to graduate students with concepts and techniques. As director he maintained the facility and provided safety training.
He became Director of Environmental Affairs in 1999 and co-designed the S.V.A. Post-Production Film Lab, Print-Making Studio and several Digital Imagery Computer Labs, as well as coordinating school-wide chemicals use regarding recycling and/or disposal.
Abate Marco has also participated in the design of public art projects such as Battery Park City, Equitable Center and Sheepshead Bay Piers in
New York City; Boston's Subway Per Cent for Art project, B.C.E. Plaza in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, England.
He has exhibited at several art spaces in New York City, including the Wooster St. Gallery and Tribeca Lab; he has exhibited at the
Monmouth Museum and the Belmar Arts Center, NJ, and the BJ Spoke Gallery in Huntington, NY, including a space in the EXPO 35 show at Spoke.
Thomas has also been involved in art education at the college and junior high school levels, and has volunteered for the Teen Arts Festival
at Brookdale College, Lincroft, NJ.
Primary influences are the artists he worked for: Scott Burton, Jane A. Kaufman and Steve Gianakos, and the sculptor Siah Armajani
at Battery Park City, New York, and architect Ching-Yu-Chang. Abate Marco is inspired by all these artists and the architects Louis Kahn and Eero Saarinen and engineer/architects Felix Candela and Santiago Calatrava.
Media used in sculpture and drawing varies with the ideas; the subjects are usually elements of architecture such as doors, walls, windows, stairways and pathways, naval architecture and bridges (Tom studied engineering with his father Micheal R. Abate Marco, who who worked on the design of U.S. Navy and Air Force navigation systems, along with NASA star-tracking systems.)
Tom is inspired by nautical literature as well as science fiction, music and the forms of musical instruments; it is the intention of the artist that most of the forms speak of transition in time - the change in physical and emotional space as well as shifts in our perception of the environment, and he has built several sculptures alluding to the unexpected rapidity of global climate change.
Since moving to the Jersey Shore, Tom has become involved with ocean conservancy and wildlife preservation organizations.
The work herein shows some of the architectural/engineering structures he designed and built as real or imagined pieces - some were realized
full-sized and functional, or they exist in maquette form. Most are on the edge of practicality and some remain as ideas on paper.
Some are seen removed from their usual context (except for First-House.)
There are those who consider the work impractical, dangerous and expensive, not realizing that they are all abstractions of functional
forms that may or may not WORK. They are almost right; some of these structures actually "work"; that is, some fulfill a need and
do it safely. However, some of these ideas exist solely as proposals that might work only with the technology of the future.
In general, the work is seen as walking the fine edge between function and fantasy ... and some of it is simply ... impossible
He received his B.F.A. (1990) and M.F.A. (1992) working with architectural elements and civil engineering proposals at The School of Visual Arts in New York City; during graduate school he worked as assistant manager and technical adviser to undergraduate and graduate students at the school's Sculpture Center at 30 West 17th Street. He became the center's Director of Sculpture Operations in his last graduate semester in 1992, and among those responsibilities he was an informal instructor to undergraduates as well as a liaison to graduate students with concepts and techniques. As director he maintained the facility and provided safety training.
He became Director of Environmental Affairs in 1999 and co-designed the S.V.A. Post-Production Film Lab, Print-Making Studio and several Digital Imagery Computer Labs, as well as coordinating school-wide chemicals use regarding recycling and/or disposal.
Abate Marco has also participated in the design of public art projects such as Battery Park City, Equitable Center and Sheepshead Bay Piers in
New York City; Boston's Subway Per Cent for Art project, B.C.E. Plaza in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, England.
He has exhibited at several art spaces in New York City, including the Wooster St. Gallery and Tribeca Lab; he has exhibited at the
Monmouth Museum and the Belmar Arts Center, NJ, and the BJ Spoke Gallery in Huntington, NY, including a space in the EXPO 35 show at Spoke.
Thomas has also been involved in art education at the college and junior high school levels, and has volunteered for the Teen Arts Festival
at Brookdale College, Lincroft, NJ.
Primary influences are the artists he worked for: Scott Burton, Jane A. Kaufman and Steve Gianakos, and the sculptor Siah Armajani
at Battery Park City, New York, and architect Ching-Yu-Chang. Abate Marco is inspired by all these artists and the architects Louis Kahn and Eero Saarinen and engineer/architects Felix Candela and Santiago Calatrava.
Media used in sculpture and drawing varies with the ideas; the subjects are usually elements of architecture such as doors, walls, windows, stairways and pathways, naval architecture and bridges (Tom studied engineering with his father Micheal R. Abate Marco, who who worked on the design of U.S. Navy and Air Force navigation systems, along with NASA star-tracking systems.)
Tom is inspired by nautical literature as well as science fiction, music and the forms of musical instruments; it is the intention of the artist that most of the forms speak of transition in time - the change in physical and emotional space as well as shifts in our perception of the environment, and he has built several sculptures alluding to the unexpected rapidity of global climate change.
Since moving to the Jersey Shore, Tom has become involved with ocean conservancy and wildlife preservation organizations.
The work herein shows some of the architectural/engineering structures he designed and built as real or imagined pieces - some were realized
full-sized and functional, or they exist in maquette form. Most are on the edge of practicality and some remain as ideas on paper.
Some are seen removed from their usual context (except for First-House.)
There are those who consider the work impractical, dangerous and expensive, not realizing that they are all abstractions of functional
forms that may or may not WORK. They are almost right; some of these structures actually "work"; that is, some fulfill a need and
do it safely. However, some of these ideas exist solely as proposals that might work only with the technology of the future.
In general, the work is seen as walking the fine edge between function and fantasy ... and some of it is simply ... impossible
