Liliane Tomasko
b. 1967, Switzerland
Liliane Tomasko’s abstract paintings employ a distinctive, bold lyricism and assertive sense of colour. The artist begins her investigation of the human psyche in the domestic sphere, offering attentive studies of bedding and clothing, the intimate textures of our lives. Through the artist’s reflections, these prosaic materials open a gateway into the nocturnal realm of sleep and dreaming, articulating the creatively fertile space between ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’. Tomasko’s approach to abstraction is rooted, therefore, in the physical realm but ultimately transcends beyond it. Fusing material observation with intuition and association, the artist produces vigorous, imaginative expressions of familiar environments and psychological states. Intense colour, subtle tone, shadow, and painterly gesture allow space to come in and out of focus, oscillating between clarity and obscurity and emulating the atmospheric power of dreams and memories.
Tomasko’s solo exhibitions include The Artist’s Eye, The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Name me not, CAB Burgos, Spain (both 2023); S P E L L O F T H E W O O D, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda; Evening Wind, Edward Hopper House, Nyack, New York, USA (both 2022); Morpheus, Kunstmuseum Kloster unser lieben Frauen Magdeburg, Germany (2021); dark goes lightly, Château la Coste, France (2019); Caja de sueños, Museo MATE, Lima, Peru; 12 nights x dreams, ROCA Rockland Center for the Arts, New York, USA (both 2018); Mother-Matrix-Matter, Lowe Art Museum, Miami, USA (2015). Recent group exhibitions include Risky Business, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles (2024); Austria–Germany Painting 1970 to 2020, Albertina Modern, Vienna (2023); Andy Warhol to Cecily Brown: from the collections of The Albertina, The Albertina (2022); Inventing Nature, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe; From the Real: Liliane Tomasko & Sean Scully, Newlands House Gallery, Petworth House (both 2021) and Abstract Painting Now!, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria (2017).