Liliane Tomasko

LILIANE TOMASKO (Zurich, Switzerland, 1967).
Untitled, from the series "Bags", 2006.
Etching, copy 13/25.
Signed, dated and justified by hand.
Measurements: 57 x 77 cm; 65 x 87 cm (frame).
The work presented here is part of Tomasko's "Bags" series, a series of works linked to his passion for photography. In them, Tomasko organizes groups of paper bags as still lifes, and then immortalizes them with his Polaroid camera. The same procedure is followed for other types of compositions: dark corners and fragments of windows are photographed. However, these are not the high-quality photographs with which the artist begins, but also Polaroid images. The resulting works are both soft, mysterious and somewhat indistinct, often with rich colors, or colors that tend to be too dark or too bright and luminous in relation to the original object.
The work presented here is part of the series "Beds", which in turn belongs to "Lominous matter", a series of works linked to his passion for photography. In them, Tomasko organizes groups of paper bags as still lifes, and then immortalizes them with his Polaroid camera. His work is a passionate vindication of painting, and his canvases are thematically nourished by objects or scenes from his domestic environment: an unmade bed, a pile of clothes, the bangs of a hanging cloth or a simple paper bag. An imaginary of simple elements that the Zurich artist reinterprets on different occasions, resulting in a universe of apparent diversity.
Painter, sculptor and photographer, Lliliane Tomasko studied at the Chelsea College of Art&Design and the Royal Academy of Arts. She began her career with vintage Polaroid cameras, capturing prosaic objects such as unmade beds, window frames or piled-up clothes, exploring the materiality of each of them and combining them in tremendously expressive compositions, resulting in illusory patterns that immerse us in the fiber of everyday life. The artist chooses the domestic experience specifically as a route to connect with a protective energy that she describes as distinctly feminine. As the artist herself states "Painting has the ability to show us something all at once and affects us emotionally in a very direct way." Her work can be found in prestigious public and private collections around the world, including IVAM in Valencia, the Hilti Art Foundation in Schaan, the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, the Bern Art Museum, the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich, the Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA. Tomasko has shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including Kunsthalle Krems, 21er Haus (Vienna),