Evening at the Enzian

Tom Sadler is an internationally-exhibited Florida artist. Since moving to Orlando in 1983, Tom dedicated his efforts towards capturing the light, color, and mood of the Central Florida landscape. The intense light, combined with the natural beauty of the many lakes, rivers, and parks of the area provide a never-ending source of inspiration. His paintings come to life as a celebration of this beauty found in nature, sometimes exuberant, at other times more subtle.

Childhood summer camping trips throughout the United States made an early and lasting impression on Tom, deriving visual stimulation from the ever-changing landscape. The desire to communicate some of these impressions as drawings began while still in elementary school. In high school he was encouraged to pursue art in college. With his training and love of art it is only natural that his life centers around ideas and impressions of the varied landscape described now with paint on canvas.

Earning his BFA at Auburn University, Tom also studied oil painting with instructor Jack Dempsey at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and attended the School of Visual Arts in New York. Since that time, he has studied the work of a variety of artists that have had different influences on his work. Sadler feels a pressing desire and necessity to paint each day. He feels that the door is just opening to the world of revealing all that is possible for him through his artwork.

Sadler works in oils because of their inherent versatility and permanence. He uses consistencies of paint that alternate from transparent to opaque. His glazing techniques imbue his work with an unmistakable sense of light. This depiction of light and its manifestations becomes the subject in most of his work.

The light from the changing of seasons, times of day, or weather conditions are all fair game when what is often sought is the display of harmony between warm and cool color. Working from life, Tom is preoccupied with capturing the color and atmosphere that the landscape suggests. He is especially driven to paint motifs that contain water or inherently possess some other timeless quality.

His work hangs in the Embassy at Luxembourg, and the Senate at the State Capitol in Tallahassee.