Sweat Equity
Tom Davis
27 Nov – 13 Dec 2026
Opening: 26 Nov, 6-8pm

Horsepower is pleased to present Sweat Equity, a solo exhibition of new and previously unexhibited paintings made since 2020 by Essex-based artist Tom Davis.

A man wearing a fluorescent jacket can move almost anywhere unchallenged. He is simultaneously highly visible and completely invisible. Yet, with his earbuds in, he escapes into his own digital reality.

For Davis, the hi-vis has replaced religion as a marker of authority, hierarchy and social order. The lonely figures in his paintings reach out to a world beyond the frame, bringing the work into dialogue with Gnosticism, a set of ancient beliefs in which the material world is seen as a prison, the body as a site of suffering, and liberation as possible through knowledge. In this way, the hi-vis worker has unwittingly become a spiritual figure for our times.

The connection between labour, devotion and artmaking takes an unusual form in Davis’s life. In 2018, he staged a performance at his MA degree show about a caretaker stuck in Plato’s cave. He went on to become a caretaker himself at a previously derelict 1970s tennis club in exchange for accommodation and studio space. During the Covid lockdowns in 2020, the allegory of the cave took on a new resonance as Davis found himself isolated in the club. Cutting grass, jet-washing tennis courts and mopping floors: his solitude was blissful and burdensome and gave him space to think.

There is an irony in the amount of work Davis puts into securing the time and space to paint, only to make paintings that incorporate deliberately rough, slapdash marks. The paintings set these marks alongside painstakingly worked cursive, fine lines and Op Art, drawing on influences that range from Josef Herman’s modernist miners to Pieter Saenredam’s church scenes. Davis describes the labour and time invested in painting as “not that different from worship”. He knows parts of the paintings are “bad” yet shows the same devotion to the careful passages as he does to the careless ones. For Davis, there is absurd comedy in that, and in the pursuit of being taken seriously as a painter.

Sweat Equity marks the conclusion of Davis’s residency at ASC Studios and the start of Horsepower’s second year of programming. The exhibition forms part of the space’s new commitment to presenting the work of one artist from outside Glasgow each year, alongside its programme of Glasgow-based artists.

The exhibition is kindly supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.

Exhibition Details:
Opening night: Thursday 26 November, 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 27 November – 13 December 2026
Gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 12-6pm or by appointment