My photographic work investigates how interior experience becomes visible through the relationship between the male figure, surrounding environments, and material surfaces. For more than four decades, I have explored how the body carries psychological and emotional experience, and how that experience is shaped by the spaces, objects, and forces that surround it. Rather than documenting moments, I construct photographs in which vulnerability, strength, protection, concealment, and balance coexist, inviting viewers into spaces where outward appearance gives way to inner experience.
I began by photographing dance and performance, experiences that shaped my understanding of the expressive body. That foundation evolved into constructed photographic environments in which gesture, light, architecture, landscape, and material objects become active participants in the image rather than simply its setting.
Across a series of interconnected bodies of work, my practice has gradually expanded from the body itself toward the larger field in which the body exists.
Quiet Anatomies(1985–1988) considers the figure as a site of stillness and perception, where subtle shifts of posture and light reveal interior states.
Inherited Armor (1980–present) and Covered Witness(1987–1989) investigate protection, concealment, and the ways identity is constructed, performed, and defended. Masks, codpieces, veils, and coverings become psychological as much as physical forms, reflecting both personal vulnerability and broader cultural experience.
In Echoes of Stone (1992–present) and Inner Terrains(1996–present), the dialogue expands beyond the figure to include classical sculpture, architecture, and landscape. These environments become active participants, carrying traces of memory, pressure, reflection, and transformation rather than serving as passive settings.
Between What Holds (2020–present) brings these investigations together. Men inhabit spaces where support, tension, and balance are implied rather than secure. Branches, fabric, architecture, reflections, and shifting light become collaborators in the image, suggesting moments in which vulnerability, resilience, intimacy, and uncertainty coexist. Here, the boundary between body and environment begins to soften, allowing each to shape the meaning of the other.
My current work continues this trajectory by exploring the possibility that body, landscape, and consciousness are not separate realities but expressions of a shared field of experience. Through layered imagery, reflections, shadows, and the merging of figure with place, I seek photographs that suggest connection rather than separation—where identity is understood not as something contained within the body, but as something continually formed through our participation in the living world.
Seen together, these bodies of work trace an ongoing movement from the individual figure toward a more expansive understanding of perception, relationship, and presence. Throughout this evolution, photography remains a means of making visible those emotional and psychological forces that cannot be directly seen but nevertheless shape how we inhabit ourselves and the world.
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions
2026 New Now IX, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2026 11th Juried Photography Exhibition, Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach, DE
2025 In the Soft Light, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2025 holy.body (Michael Biello with Thomas Moore) The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2023 Tea Dance 1980, Thomas Moore, Biello Martin Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2018 Members exhibit, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA
2018 Innovative Means Photography from the Collection, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
2014 Philadelphia Photographers: 1975-1985, Santa Bannon Fine Art Gallery, Bethlehem, PA
2010 Daydream Nation, The Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA
1995 Thomas Moore, The Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, NJ
1994 Carspecken-Scott Gallery, Wilmington, DE
1993 Thomas Moore, Delaware Theatre Company, Wilmington, DE
1993 Photography Twelve, Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
1993 Photographs from the Collection of Carlton Willers, University of Iowa Art Museum, Iowa City, IA
1993 Fronts + Backs, Paul Cava Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1993 Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA
1992 Puchong Gallery, New York, NY
1992 Neikrug Gallery, New York, NY
1992 Kampo Cultural Center, New York, NY
1992 Zone One Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1991 Thomas Moore. Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
1990 Young Americans, F/Stop Gallery, Bath, U.K
1990 Imprints, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA
1990 Imprints, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA
1990 Dark Light, Susan Isaacs Gallery, Wilmington, DE
1989 Thomas Moore, The Book Trader Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1988 Fantasy, Illusion and Grotesque, Sykes Gallery, Millersville University, Millersville, PA
1988 Port of History Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1988 Persona, Level Three Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1988 Art Fighting AIDS, Port of History Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1988 63rdAnnual Competition, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA
1987 Janvier Gallery, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
1987 Selected Photographs, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA
1987 Photography Six, Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
1986 Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1986 Fine Art Photography 86, North Museum, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA
1986 62ndAnnual Competition, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA
1984 Woo World Performance Views, Morris Gallery, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
1982 Woo World Performance Views, Marion Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1980 Facing the Mask, University Gallery, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Selected Articles and Catalogs
Binswanger, Julia A new queer art exhibition in Kensington redefines masculinity… Billy Penn at WHYY, April 11, 2025
Conklin,Jo-Ann The Collection of Carlton Willers, exhibition catalog, The University of Iowa Art Museum, 1993,
Coleman, A.D. Metro, Letter from Philadelphia/NewYork No. 18, November 1990.
Coleman,A.D. Photo Review, Photography In and Around Philadelphia, Fall, 1990.
Seidel, Miriam, An Exhibition of Contrasts, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 8, 1990.
McGreevy, Linda, Portfolio Magazine, Possible Reality, February 7, 1990.
McGreevy, Exhibition catalog,, Old Dominion University Press, 1990.
Crohn, Jennifer, Flesh Fish & Photos, Welcomat, January 10, 1990.
Scott, William, Staged Portraits, Philadelphia Inquirer, May 17, 1989.
Perloff, Stephen, The Delaware Portfolio, The Photo Review, Spring, 1988.
Donohue, Victoria Sixteen Artists Showcase Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/12, 1988.
River to River, Portfolio: Thomas Moore, November, 1987.
Curtis, Deborah, Introduction to Visual Literacy, Prentice-Hall, 1986.
Teaching & Professional Service
Senior Lecturer, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA (1990-1995)
Board Member, Tilt Institute for the Contemporary Image, Philadelphia, PA (2015-2018)
Board Member, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA (2012-2015)
Board Member, The Photo Review, Langhorne, PA (2009-2012)
Board Member, AIDS Delaware, Wilmington, DE (2009-2011)
Director, Book Trader Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (1987-1992)
Collections
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
Millersville University, Millersville, PA
Education
MFA University of Delaware, Newark, DE
BA Communications and Theatre, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA