Art as Sanctuary: A Conversation with Sculptor Tom Duncan
- May 1
- 5 min read
By Saadat S.
May 1, 2026
Tom Duncan was four years old when his aunt handed him a clay set and changed the course of his life. Born in Scotland, shaped by the Second World War, and transplanted to New York, Duncan has spent decades turning personal memory — joy and violence alike — into three-dimensional sculpture. We visited him in his studio.
Walking into Tom's studio is like stepping into a mind made physical. Objects cluster on shelves — found toys, worn figurines, fragments of other lives — waiting to be absorbed into his next piece. Duncan himself is warm and direct, the kind of person who answers your question and then gently redirects it somewhere more honest.
EARLY LIFE
Q
Can you tell us about yourself — how you became an artist, and why you moved to the US?
TOM
I don't think I came to the US to pursue art. I just followed my mother. My father was very artistic — he loved to fix things up in the house, and I was always watching him. At the age of four, my aunt gave me a Tommy Tweedy clay set, and I was completely infatuated. From that age I started doing sculpture, and I've never stopped. It wasn't anything I consciously thought about. I just loved working in three dimensions.
Q
How did those early experiences shape the way you work today?
TOM
We were bombed and attacked at the beginning of the Second World War, all through the war. I never really felt safe. When I would go out, I would look up at the sky — I was actually shot at by a German plane when I was two, though I don't remember it. And at home, it was horrible. My mother was being attacked. Inside and outside was never safe for me.
The only time I ever felt safe, or peace inside my heart, was when I was doing my artwork — because I could block everything out. -Tom Duncan
THE WORK
Q
If someone were seeing your work for the first time, how would you describe what you're doing?
TOM
To be honest, I wouldn't say anything. Once I saw two women arguing in front of my work — one said it was so funny, the other said it was angry and disturbed. I thought: that's really interesting. Everybody sees something different. I never had a need to talk about my work or explain it to people. My mother didn't understand what I was doing. My brother certainly didn't. It was just something Tommy did.
Q
What led you to turn your own physical and personal experiences into sculpture?
TOM
I did a small piece of myself in my Mickey Mouse gas mask — they gave those to children during the war so they'd actually wear them. I thought my mother and brother would like it, and they didn't get it at all. But total strangers related to it in ways I had no idea would happen. I found that the more personal I got, the more people seemed to connect. So that's where I started doing my childhood memory pieces — what I call my war pieces.
Duncan's sculptures often hold two truths at once — the warmth of childhood memory and the darkness that lived alongside it. Light and shadow, joy and violence, all contained in a single piece. He doesn't separate the good from the bad. He puts them in the same room and lets the viewer sit with both.
Q
You lived near a prisoner-of-war camp as a child?
TOM
We lived about a block from a prison used by the British Army for German prisoners — mostly Luftwaffe pilots that were shot down. They would come out into our roads, dig ditches. I knew them by sight better than I knew my own friends' fathers, because all the fathers were away at war. One Sunday I went to church and the prisoners were in the back. I was stunned. I said, "Ma, what are they doing here? They're the bad guys." She just said, in Scottish, "Be quiet." If they're in church, they're Catholic — they have to be good guys. And yet they're Nazis. It was such a conundrum of confusion for a six-year-old. But I love that about life. Life is very complex. Not what it seems to be.
PROCESS & MATERIALS
Q
You're known for using found objects — toys, discarded materials. What draws you to them?
TOM
I love walking around the city and looking at people, and there's always stuff being thrown out or lying around. I've always been a collector, of whatever — I'm not even sure myself. It's really hard to find things now because everybody's into collecting. But even riding the subway, I'm the only person sitting there looking at people's expressions. Everyone else is on their phones. I'm counting how many people are reading a book — usually just one, or none.
Q
Some of your sculptures take decades to complete. How do you know when a work is finished?
TOM
That's actually very easy for me. I have a sketchpad and I write everything down. When I'm getting near the end, I write down everything I need to do to finish the piece. Usually what happens is: I stop thinking about the piece, and I'm thinking about something new — and then I know it's done. I always say, 90% of my work is done in my head and in my sketchbook. Only 10% is done physically in the studio. That is still, of course, a lot of work.
I've always done my artwork for me — not for a gallery, not for a museum, not for a show. I just wanted to do it for me, so I could feel safe. -Tom Duncan
Q
What advice would you give to students just starting out in art?
TOM
I don't like to give advice. People who want to do artwork are going to do it inherently. There's a group of people interested in art because they see it as glamorous, like a style — and if it's not from within, it's not going to really work. So whatever I would say, I guess, is: follow your dreams, and do what you know best, what you feel the most comfortable with.
Duncan walks us to the studio door past shelves of objects-in-waiting. He mentions his grandchildren offhand — four of them, who think he is, in his words, "the world." It is perhaps the most telling detail of the afternoon: the same man who spent a childhood looking up at dangerous skies now exists in a life filled with people who adore him. The work, he says, made him feel safe. It still does.
