FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


LILIANE TOMASKO: Into the Darkness
October 29, 2014 – January 17, 2015
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 / 6PM-8PM

Leslie Feely in association with Waqas Wajahat is pleased to present Liliane Tomasko: Into the Darkness on view October 29, 2014 - January 17, 2015. This is the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery and will feature new paintings and works on paper. This occasion also marks Tomasko’s first solo presentation in New York since her 2010 exhibition at the New York Studio School.

Liliane Tomasko’s painting practice begins by taking Polaroid photographs of ordinary domestic objects and settings such as bed sheets and linens, curtains, doorways and clothes. Tightly cropped and concentrated in composition, these indiscernible images are then transcribed onto the canvas in a palette of rich hues pushed to the physical boundaries of the picture-plane. Muted and enigmatic, Tomasko’s still-life paintings transform overlooked objects into dreamlike visions of reality which otherwise would not command a central role in our perception.

“They’re empty beds, but they bear traces of human activity, so they’re very suggestive. However, to me the bed is also a portal to another reality. Without sleep or escape from the bright certainties of daylight, deprived of the ability to dream, we’d soon enter a world of total insanity. And that’s how these paintings of unmade beds became dreamscapes: traveling through the unmade spaces of a body asleep and a mind awake.” – Liliane Tomasko in conversation with Oscar Humphries*

Departing from the sublime surfaces of the paintings executed in 2013, Tomasko's latest work features a vigorous brush work and thick latticework of pigment that once served as underlying drawing for her earlier work. This way, these "inside out" paintings bring forward the guts of the painting laying them bare for the viewer's scrutiny. Into the Darkness remains true to the artists desire for subject matter but verges on the brink of abstraction. Emotionally charged, these inside out paintings evoke the desire for light; a yearning that could not exist without the knowledge and experience of darkness. Through this notion of absent light, Liliane Tomasko finds beauty in the dim poetic corners of our unconscious existence.

Born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1967, Liliane Tomasko studied at Camberwell School of Art and Chelsea College of Art, London and received her MFA from the Royal Academy of Art, London. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Mother-Matrix-Matter at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami (December 2015). Her recent exhibitions include Vestige Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, UK; Deeper Dark Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, Ireland; Luminous Matter Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Valencia, Spain and Herforder Kunstverein, Herford, Germany. Her work is included in the following public collections: Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland; Hilti Art Foundation, Schaan, Liechtenstein; IVAM-Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Valencia, Spain; and K20/K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany and Try-me, Richmond, VA. Liliane Tomasko lives and works in New York.

*– Liliane Tomasko in conversation with Oscar Humphries, Editorial Director of Apollo. Liliane Tomasko Vestige Timothy Taylor Gallery, London. PG42

For more information please contact gallery@lesliefeely.com or call 212-988-0040