An Interview with Thomas Doyle
Aimee Resnick (she/her) - January 22, 2023
Thomas Doyle specialized in obsessively anxious miniatures, working at a 1:43 scale and smaller. His works, often sealed behind glass, invite the viewer into surreal moments of suspended emotion frequented by disaster, war, and loss. He is also the creator of the Arkology Project, an immersive and exploratory alternative reality project. Recently, Doyle was honored as a MacDowell Colony fellow for his excellent canon of creation. This week, we sat down to discuss Romanticism, chaos, and human control.
NAR: The miniature has often been typified as an inaccessible hobby of the wealthy. How do you transform and appropriate this context into your canon?
Doyle: There's a long history of wealthy people collecting these incredibly elaborate doll houses. I've been to Amsterdam and I've seen them there, almost like a bureau. They're just enormous; and then there’s the Thorne miniatures in Chicago, which, you know, follow that mold.
However, I came into miniatures by making shoebox dioramas and dollhouses. In some ways I feel that with ingenuity and experience and know-how, you can turn any trash into miniature. So my studio is filled with things to repurpose. I’ve never really thought in terms of subverting the notion of the collectors item for wealthy people: however, I do think about the trappings that come with dollhouses and the way these things are very controlled, clean, and nice.
NAR: As you mentioned, the miniature demonstrated perfect domestic control. Your work seems more naturalistic, if not elemental. Can you elaborate on the role of environmental control in your work?
Doyle: I started [making miniatures] under glass for a couple reasons. One is that, aesthetically, I like the look. Logistically, it keeps the dust off of [the miniatures] because they're insanely hard to keep clean. But, most importantly, it establishes the work as an environment. Much like an aquarium, it's sealing a world.
So the idea of control comes in a couple ways. When you put the dome on top, you're sealing off a space. I want that, I want that environment. In most of my work, I've played with it in different ways, but for the most part I like the control of a viewer on the outside looking in. The intimacy of trying to look. There's a certain chaos and despair and anxiety in my work: putting it under glass helps control it. Almost like a controlled explosion.
NAR: A common theme in your work is the omnipotence of the viewer - we often know something your miniature subjects do not. How does this connect to the modern world? What do you feel is the impending doom just beyond our line of sight?
Doyle: A lot comes from helplessness, right? You're on the outside of watching. My early work, even though it depicted larger catastrophic scenes, was more about anxiety and psychology.
That has morphed into relationships between people, between families, between households. And warfare is a thread that runs through. I'm no longer completely focused on external effects. I'm working on a series right now that people will immediately read as a reaction to the climate crisis. I'm trying to recall a surreal, dreamlike interpretation of the fears we all have.
NAR: You’ve described your miniatures as “landscapes that dwarf and threaten the figures within.” How does your work reflect the Romantic idea of the sublime? Does your Midwestern background impact the role of landscape in your work?
Doyle: I first started making this work when I moved from Northern California to Brooklyn. My mental reaction to that was wanting to make environments that felt really lush as escapism. There's an element of the sublime even without any landscape. Just like most people, I'm drawn to the pastoral: what’s beautiful and unmarred, which you certainly don’t get in Brooklyn.
I grew up on the Western side of Michigan, close to Chicago. It has the farmland feel, unlike the Eastern side of the state with its factories. I’ve recently been making a new body of work about the commercialization of the landscape, all the strip malls and nowheres that we're confronted with all the time. I'm really interested because they feel like signs that we’re on the wrong path
I'm certainly not a climate change expert. It's not something I feel is embroiled in my work, or that I’ve even directly confronted. Still, there’s an impending sense of crisis. You know, I've been working with themes of anxiety for a long time. Every age probably says “oh, this is the age of anxiety.”
Culture is accelerating and deteriorating in some ways, both in the natural world and that of civics.
NAR: Your work also emphasizes the absurdity of war. How do you feel the modern geo-political context in Ukraine has changed your artistic routines?
Doyle: It has. The thing that I find the most striking is that when I started my series of works [regarding war], America had been at war for 12 years. I was making up scenes of warfare within a basic, Suburban, bland, domestic view. That type of houses and that type of landscape were not the images coming out of Afghanistan.
However, in Ukraine, you see those images now. I’ve been struck by how much closer these images are to my earlier works. The landscapes and the houses are much closer to the American style. I’ve found it unsettling.
NAR: Do you feel that this domesticity is more relatable to people than nature?
Doyle: The natural land, ideally, should be something we can all connect to. We all know the idealization of it. But domesticity is different because we all have different backgrounds. What I'm trying to do is simplify it a bit so that people can relate [to a universal domestic imagery].
NAR: Every one of your pieces tells a story, but you seem coy in sharing it. In interviews, you’ve stated the most common question about your work is simply: “what happened?” The answer is always that you don’t know. What’s the magic in not knowing? How can unclarity enhance our perception of the world?
Doyle: The mystery is far more interesting than knowing. I want to be left with ambiguity when I experience my work and when I present it to others. I would like them to walk away still thinking about my work. Ambiguity allows the viewer to enter the work and complete it. I like work that functions like a pebble in your shoe – you carry it around for a bit and then choose either to dislodge it or understand it.
In terms of experiencing the world, ambiguity seems to often be wrapped up in empathy. You don't understand other people's motivations or even sometimes what’s happened. We don't always know the truth. That seems to be an important lesson imparted by my works: it’s how we come to terms with the world.
Please note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
