Tom Sladden was born in Wellington in 1965. He studied Visual Communication Design at Wellington Polytechnic graduating in 1987. He also spent a year studying drawing under Barnet Rubenstein at the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston USA. His early career was a mixture of Illustrating for design and advertising agencies and teaching. He taught for ten years at Massey University School of Art and Design and during that time began showing regularly in Wellington and Auckland. He has been a Wallace Art Award finalist and his work is in many collections throughout New Zealand, Australia the United Kingdom and the USA. He lives with his wife Nic and four children in Wellington.