The Swiss artist Liliane Tomasko has opened her first solo exhibition at Marc Straus, NY. Tomasko’s abstract paintings are “Inscapes” of everyday life – the terrain of an unmade bed, the columns of closed curtains, or the vagarious composition of scattered cushions; quotidian elements we rarely contemplate but make up the fabric of our realities.
The artist, as part of her practice, photographs her domestic environment, often waiting for the right light to capture fleeting moments and their details. At times, she “sculpts” her subjects (towels and sheets) to reveal their particularities.
Tomasko’s work has antecedents in the Post-Impressionists, Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, but in its swooping lines and muscularity they hue closer to Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell. Lambent washes of brilliant colors take the center stage in her paintings. Shadows in the actual images may be replaced with veils of muted colors, leaving enough to reveal inner light from previous under-paintings.
Tomasko’s compositions are inexplicably imbued with a latent sense of human presence
The serial nature of her work is important because life is repetitive. Giving attention to the daily rituals such as making a bed, folding or tidying stuff, Tomasko invites us to engage with and to look squarely at small gestures that make us human. In his seminal book, Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard posits that “memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home.” Indeed, Tomasko’s compositions are inexplicably imbued with a latent sense of human presence and memories. With an abstract voice that is entirely her own, Tomasko’s paintings are in the end emotional and personal evocations, both beautiful and bold.
Liliane Tomasko was born in Zurich in 1967, and now lives and works in New York and Germany. After her degree in sculpture at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, she completed an MA in sculpture at the Royal Academy School. She is married to the abstract painter Sean Scully.
Her work is found in public and private collections worldwide, including IVAM, Valencia; Hilti Art Foundation, Schaan; Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf; Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich; Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA. She has shown internationally in both solo and group exhibitions, including at Lowe Art Museum, Miami; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Garrison Arts Center, New York; IVAM, Valencia and Casal Solleric, Spain, as well as in Vienna, France, China, and Germany. In 2016, she and her husband, Sean Scully, jointly exhibited at the prestigious Bancaja Cultural Center in Valencia, Spain. Tomasko is represented by MARC STRAUS in New York, Kerlin Gallery in Dublin and Galerie Bechter Kastowsky in Vienna.
LILIANE TOMASKO January 5 – February 10, 2017, Opening Reception Thu January 5, 2017, 6 pm MARC STRAUS 299 Grand Street New York, NY 10002