American artist Tom Shropshire calls his style of painting “Traditional with a Twist” because his work often includes an unexpected element of fantasy, myth, or whimsy. He has won numerous awards during his career and his paintings are represented in many private and corporate collections, and museums. His paintings have also been featured on covers of national magazines and on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Recent work has focused on impressionistic night cityscapes and a series of paintings that pays homage to the pulp cover art of the 40’s and 50’s.  

In Shropshire’s own words; 

I create my paintings in a very unstructured and spontaneous manner. They often seem to evolve on their own as I immerse myself in the paintings and try to see where the subject takes me …a story unfolds in my mind. Not a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, but instead, a fragment of a story. That’s also why I sometimes create captions as well as titles for some of my paintings. 

I clearly recall the children’s book illustrations I loved and the lurid cover art of the paperbacks and pulp magazines that captivated me as a teenager. Over time I have discovered that the tantalizing element of the art was the mystery of the unexplained dramatic action and exotic locations portrayed; and even though the stories often did not live up to my high expectations, the melodramatic covers of pulp magazines helped influence and shape my art. I want my paintings to function sometimes as illustrations for unwritten stories. Back then, the cover art and captions of the pulps

captured my imagination and fired my sense of wonder and adventure! These are all influences that shape my art today. 

 I think the artist, Edgar Degas, said it best, "A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people."