Thomas Macaulay Collection

Thomas Macaulay was born in 1946 in Marshfield, WI. When Macaulay was a young boy his family moved to Fargo, ND. He earned a B.A. as an art major with a concentration in sculpture from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Upon graduating in 1968, he entered the University of Iowa earning a M.A. in Art (Sculpture) in 1969 and an M.F.A in Art (Multimedia and Intermedia) in 1971.

In the early 1970s, while teaching courses in Art Forms and Intermedia at the University of Iowa, Macaulay was a member of the Rockefeller Foundation funded by the University of Iowa Center for New Performing Arts, working in a form termed 'visual performance.' In individual and collaborative time-based works, he integrated elements of visual art and alternative theatre. Macaulay feels that this experience of using time as a medium influenced all of his subsequent work. His artistic interest is in the process of perception and audience interaction. He has investigated these topics as the subject of his art for over forty years.

Beginning in the early 1970s, then exclusively from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, and again in the 2000s, Macaulay combined elements of visual art and interior architecture into a form termed 'site-specific, environmental installation'- that is, a temporary artwork (installation) into which viewers physically enter (environment), which is designed for a particular existing space (site-specific). From the early 1980s to the early 1990s Macaulay used black, wrinkled construction paper, black masking tape and black pushpins, as well as existing, white 'gallery furniture' - portable walls pedestals, platforms, etc. - to make two dozen works in the Circle Series. Then from the early 2000s to the early 2010s, he used corrugated cardboard container, white 18' cubes and brown 3' cubes, to make a dozen works in the Box Series. This indoor site-specific installation was done while maintaining two, ever-changing, outdoor site-based, altered and enhanced environments. He integrated aspects of visual art and landscape architecture into outdoor, site-based, altered and enhanced environments in the early 1970s, then exclusively from the early 1990s - early 2000s. This type of sculpture is ever changing, as the plant materials, shrubs and trees mature and the landscape requires ongoing maintenance.

Macaulay has worked in the visual art forms of drawing, printing, photography and video and visual performance. He has exhibited his work throughout the United States. One-person exhibitions of his work have been hosted by alternative galleries (Artemisia, Chicago; PS1, NYC), commercial galleries (OK Harris, NYC; Twinning, NYC), university galleries (The University of Delaware, Harvard University) and museums (The Dayton Art Institute, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu). Group exhibitions have included Reality of Illusion (organized by the Denver Art Museum and the University of Southern California) and Aspects of Perception (organized by Virginia Commonwealth University and Bard College).

From 1973 - 2012, Macaulay was employed at Wright State University (WSU) as an Art Professor responsible for undergraduate level courses in Sculpture, Expanded Media - environmental installation and visual performance and Studio Foundation. While at WSU, Macaulay served on several University, College of Liberal Arts, and Department of Art and Art History committees. During Macaulay's tenure, the Asian Cultural Council, the Fulbright Commission, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and WSU awarded Macaulay travel and artists residency opportunities. He traveled widely to study art and architecture from ancient periods to contemporary works. Some of these trips included stays in China, Egypt, England, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain and Turkey.