Art in the Lobby: Pete Connolly & Tom Walbank

Join us Saturday, March 10th from 6-8pm to welcome Pete Connolly and Tom Walbank and their artwork in the Hotel Congress Lobby! Get to know the artists while enjoying complimentary chips and salsa courtesy of the Cup Cafe.

About the artists

Pete Connolly

Pete Connolly of Birds and Arrows is a songwriter, a drummer and has been a profession artist and illustrator for over 30 years. He’s originally from Bolton, England but has spent most of his life in the states and is newly native to Tucson.

He began his career illustrating The Connolly Tarot Deck which went on to become one of the most popular decks in the world of tarot. He then and went on to create the Feng Shui Tarot Deck ten years later.

His paintings have been displayed in museums and galleries up and down the east coast, including being featured in a display at The Museum of American Folk art in NYC and has painted a collection of murals for businesses in and around historic Williamsburg, VA. In 2016 he was commissioned by NBC to decorated the walls of characters in two separate network television shows. He was also commissioned to illustrate a series of children’s books that are now used as learning tools in the city schools of Baltimore, New Orleans and St. Louis.

Using mixed media combined with traditional painting Pete creates dynamic, pop art inspired work with an affinity for neon colors and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Tom Walbank

Tom Walbank is an artist and blues musician.His earliest artwork appeared in Atomic comic in Edinburgh, Scotland. His style is between Kevin O Neill and Alice Neel. He produced a book of portraits of blues musicians in 2010 and showed an exhibition of paintings based on Lightnin’ Hopkins at MAST in Tucson in 2012. Tom is in a proud, long line of art school dropout musicians from England.