Liliane Tomasko and Sean Scully work goes on show in Petworth

Newlands House Gallery in Petworth presents From The Real: Liliane Tomasko and Sean Scully, exhibiting the two practices of the artist couple side by side for the first time in the UK (July 24-October 10).
Liliane TomaskoLiliane Tomasko
Liliane Tomasko

Spokeswoman Charlotte Wittesaele said: “Liliane Tomasko and Sean Scully deal with abstraction through distinctly different approaches despite sharing living spaces and environment. Where Scully draws on his personal biography to inform his art, Tomasko focuses on the universal experience of the domestic, both presenting an emotional journey of light and pigment.

“Swiss-born Tomasko (1967), working predominantly in abstract painting, has dedicated herself to themes of sleep, dreams and the unconscious. For more than 20 years, Tomasko has abstracted everyday domestic scenes from her life. Tomasko starts by capturing moments on polaroid photography, then transcribes them into drawing, followed by painting. Each step erases interpretable details, losing its connection to the original source – like a process of Chinese whispers. Tomasko’s final works are motivated by intuition and spontaneity, creating large gestural paintings on paper and canvas.

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“Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1945 and now living between New York and Germany, Scully is considered to be one of the most important abstract painters working today.

“Drawing on European traditions, Scully is credited with reinvigorating abstract painting. On view for the first time in the UK are Scully’s most recent works including his black paintings series (2020) and figurative paintings, a format he only recently returned to. Also on view will be three sculptures by the artist. Over the past two decades Scully has revisited his sculptural practice, working predominantly in steel and stone to create powerful structures that assert their materiality. This exhibition offers the first time in the UK Scully presents sculpture in Murano glass, affirming his prodigious artistic range.”

Coinciding with the exhibition, Thames & Hudson will publish On the Line: Conversations with Sean Scully, a collection of conversations between Sean Scully and art critic Kelly Grovier on September 16 2021.

“Liliane Tomasko’s abstract paintings employ a distinctive, bold lyricism, with an equally unabashed sense of colour. The artist often begins with a study of the personal effects of everyday domesticity such as bedding or clothing to create work that suggests a gateway into the realms of sleep and dreaming; delving into the gulf between what we understand as the conscious and subconscious. Recent paintings display an increasing vitality and assertiveness, articulating an abstraction that is rooted in the physical realm but attempting a departure from it. Intense colour, subtle tone, shadows and painterly gesture are woven together in such a way that space comes in and out of focus, suspending one’s perception of them and emulating the clarity or lack thereof of dreams and memories.”

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Charlotte added: “Liliane Tomasko was born in 1967 in Switzerland and lives and works in Tappan, New York, and in Königsdorf near Munich. Her work has been shown in institutions and museums worldwide.”

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