Aida Tomescu

Zinnia, 2006
oil on canvas
168.0 x 122.0 cm
signed, dated and titled (on the reverse)

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Provenance
Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
Acquired from the above in 2006

Exhibited
'Aida Tomescu', Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 4-29 April 2006, cat.16 (illustrated in catalogue)

Aida Tomescu's painting 'Zinnia' (2006) is a poetic construction where the radiant colour and movement of the brushstrokes across the canvas create an acutely sensuous experience for the viewer. However, underlying the immediacy of this joyous impact is the artist's intensive, laborious technique. The gestation of Tomescu's paintings are slow, the surfaces carefully constructed through the application, removal and reconfiguration of the oil paint. These textured surfaces speak the language of the earth, as if weathered over time. Exhibited in a solo show at Niagara Galleries in 2006, 'Zinnia' was part of a sequence of works that heralded the artist's use of strong primary colours, suggestive of fire and water. This large painting radiates with a brilliant luminosity, producing a lightness of experience that belies the weighty and gritty rendering of the paint.

  • Zinnia

Image is courtesy of the artist


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Born in Bucharest, Romania in 1955, Tomescu came to Sydney in 1980, where she began to exhibit with Gallery A and Coventry Gallery and, where she continues to live and work. Tomescu trained at the Institute of Fine Arts, Bucharest to 1977 and the City Art Institute, Sydney to 1983.

Tomescu was awarded the Dobell Prize for drawing in 2003, the Wynne Prize for landscape painting in 2001 and the Sulman Prize for genre or subject painting in 1996 by the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. In 1996 Tomescu was also awarded the inaugural Lowenstein Sharp fellowship at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, which was followed by a solo exhibition of the artist's work at the institution in 1997. In 2009 the Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra presented the solo exhibition 'Paintings and Drawings'.

Important exhibitions for the artist include 'Abstraction', Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, 2011; 'Out of Australia: Prints and Drawings', The British Museum, London, 2011; 'Contemporary Encounters', Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2010; 'The Story of Australian Printmaking 1801-2005', National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007; 'Australian Prints', Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, 2004 and, 'Place Made: Australian Print Workshop', National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2004.

Aida Tomescu is represented by Fox Jensen, Sydney and Fox Jensen McCrory, Auckland.