HERE
HERE
Tomislav Nikolic
20 October - 26 November
Corner of Hampden Street and Cecil Lane
Paddington, Sydney, Australia
In Tomislav Nikolic’s exhibition HERE, “colour is the fruit of life” (Guillaume Apollinaire).
Tomislav Nikolic’s new paintings demonstrate just how firmly he is in command of the chromatic lexicon he has developed. His approach is considered and celebratory - he is acutely aware of colours' capacity to exist as a body in and of itself and to carry deep emotional resonance. His nuanced adjustments of tone and depth have become increasingly fine as he patiently builds fields that offer an immersive experience that slow sensation and time, letting us feel colour as if it were a skin.
Nikolic’s practice has been hugely embraced by international collectors in recent years. There is a recognition that his practice is mindful of paintings history and carefully approaches the aspirations many have held for it to shoulder conceptual and philosophical weight. Though he is certain to not let it become weighed down by this burden, preferring to leave the work a little more open ended, less didactic, more intuitive.
There is also a recognition from these collectors that what Nikolic contributes to this history is proving to be singular and compelling. His painting helps to revitalise abstraction - away from the puritanism of “stylish” minimalism, avoiding the excesses of expressionist theatre. Nikolic paintings are certainly dramatic, but the series of judgements he makes about each and every aspect of the object he constructs, are deeply considered and lead to paintings of real substance and spirit.
In The awaiting conception of reality, (4,5,6,7) we see the largest work he has made to date operating as an expansive field of the richest mossy greens. It is verdant - almost as if the painting quietly exhaling oxygen. The internal edges show his familiar tidal record of the multiple strata that establish such density in the underpainting. Each radiating layer reveals a different colour that contributes to the atmosphere of the interior. Then at the flank the colour dissipates briefly before the intense claret coloured detail between the stretcher and the frame. It is along the axes of the zip that our eyes travel before falling back into the slow, enveloping interior. Despite its extravagant scale and intensity, this is a painting of quiet presence and subtlety.
We are delighted to present these four new paintings of Tomislav’s. It has been an extremely busy year for him exhibiting with us in Art Basel Hong Kong, then in Munich and now this current exhibition, with another planned for Madrid in 2017.
Andrew Jensen, October 2016