b. 1967, Zurich, CH
Lives and works between New York, NY, US, and London, UK
Drawn to representing oneiric, liminal spaces and states of consciousness, Liliane Tomasko’s canvases comprise arrangements of sweeping, curvilinear brushstrokes that fluidly intertwine like trails of motion or specters. Her paintings invoke viewers’ entire sensorium, suggesting the feel, smell, and look of a scene without representing it as the eye might perceive it. From 2000-2014, much of Tomasko’s oeuvre centered on evocations of the textures, fabrics, and atmospheres of domestic interiors. Based upon close-up polaroids taken by the artist of clothes belonging to absent others, used mattresses, slept-in bedsheets, and light-filtering curtains, her paintings brought inspired attention to the traces and impressions of life visible in the materials left in one’s wake. These works cultivate a sense of intimacy absent of its figural representation.
Tomasko’s recent works develop her interest in powerfully atmospheric evocations of psyche. Abstract acrylic paintings distinguish themselves from the paintings inspired by polaroids, instead searching for the subconscious through color, and pictorial space and depth through shadow and light. In such emotionally magnetic works, Tomasko pushes beyond the haptic—the sensuality of the material world— to explore the world of dreams: ”we know that there is something other, a dark matter which shapes our lives and our actions, our interactions with the world in which we live. Every night we are given the opportunity to submerge and connect with that which we know to be there, but eludes our need to define and name, to take possession of it, to bring it to the communal realm which we all share.”
Liliane Tomasko (b. 1967, Zurich, CH; lives and works between New York, NY, US, and London, UK) earned her BFA at the Chelsea College of Art & Design, and her MFA at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. She has had solo exhibitions at the New York Studio School, New York, US; IVAM, Valencia, SP; Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, IE; Kewenig, Berlin, DE; Kunstmuseum Kloster unser lieben Frauen Magdeburg, DE; The Edward Hopper Museum and Study Center, NY, among many others. Tomasko’s work is collected by many public and private collections, including the Albertina Collection, AS; the Lowe Art Museum, US; Try-Me Collection, US; Sammlung Klein, DE; Hilti Art Foundation, IR; Collection du Conseil Départemental du Var, FR; Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, DE; Kunstmuseum Kloster unser lieben Frauen Magdeburg, DE; Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, IE; IVAM-Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, SP; K20 K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, DE; Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, CH, among others.