GALLERY EXHIBITION MUNICH

TOMISLAV NIKOLIC | vestiges of now
May 13 - July 16, extended 6.8.2016


This project has been assisted by the Australian Government
through the Australia Council for the Arts, its art funding and
advisory body.

vestige of now: 2, 2016
acrylic, marble dust, 16.9ct lemon gold leaf and glass on linen, plaster gesso, wood
50.5 x 58.4 x 9.5 cm

 

AMBACHER CONTEMPORARY is pleased to announce the first
european show of the Australian artist TOMISLAV NIKOLIC
in the gallery space in Munich.

He is represented in Australiasia, by the Jensen Gallery in
Sydney and by Jensen/Fox in Aukland. They presented the
artist already four times at the Art Basel Hong Kong.

We are proud to represent the artist in Europe.
His next soloshow will be in our gallery space
in Paris, likely 2017.

 

Exhibition view, "vestiges of now"
Ambacher Contemporary, Munich

All paintings up to the yellow one
are in private collections in Paris
and Munich

VESTIGES OF NOW

“vestiges of now” is a new group of paintings by Tomislav Nikolic that extend his very personal and innovative approach to colour, especially the way that he invites it to colonise, not just the canvas, but the frame, the support and even the wall. Most are modestly scaled and operate within a chromatic logic that is particular to each, but remains part of an overarching approach to colour that has been central to his practice for many years.

The genesis of much of Nikolic’s works begins with his own response to  artworks he admires but equally he draws on diverse thematic reference points beyond art history, including music, pop culture, spiritual philosophies on colour and colour association. It is colour theories, where mythology and symbolism substitute for science and truth that particularly fascinate him.

The connection to other artworks is often a conflation of aesthetic and emotional responses that feel strong and direct at inception but this inevitably alters as the particularities and requirements of each piece he makes becomes evident. What begins then as a conceptual conversation acts primarily as an aesthetic springboard from which the new paintings can launch.

It is the case that many of the artworks he admires, the philosophical positions he investigates are European. Indeed his own family heritage is European - and yet he is working almost as far away from this imagined centre as is possible. His family’s migration from Croatia to Australia was doubtless driven by optimism and ambition. For Nikolic getting back to Europe demands a different mode of orienteering.

The liberty that distance can afford allows Nikolic’s paintings to more easily resist convenient categories. They jostle with the restraint of much minimal abstraction, preferring to celebrate colours’ wilfulness and physicality rather than illustrate its character. Colour is combined in unorthodox ways and the decisions that he takes about where the boundaries of the painting reside, negate the traditional notion of a fixed picture plane in favour of an object that exists in the round. The architecture of the frames are emphatic elements in the paintings’ overall structure and are co-opted into the field of the painting rather than being an arbitrary boundary indicating the paintings’ closure.

Nikolic’s capacity to make work that is both elegant and rebellious, sensitive and wild is extraordinary. Often the paintings feel like portraits, some modest, some grand - their personality captured in every chromatic adjustment and structural decision. 

Nikolic’s work has been widely collected in Australasia, Asia and more recently in Europe. Major works, both paintings and sculpture, have been acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria and more recently by the Chartwell Trust in Auckland. 

Andrew Jensen,
Jensen Gallery Australia, Mai 2016

vestige of now: 1, 2016
acrylic, marble dust, 16.9ct lemon gold leaf on canvas, wood
81 x 68.8 x 8 cm
Private collection, Munich

vestige of now: 2, 2016
acrylic, marble dust, 16.9ct lemon gold leaf and glass on linen, plaster gesso, wood
50.5 x 58.4 x 9.5 cm

vestige of now: 3, 2016
acrylic and marble dust on linen
35 x 27 x 3 cm
Private collection, Paris

vestige of now: 4, 2016
acrylic, marble dust, 6ct white gold leaf and museum glass on linen, plaster gesso,
wood, 52 x 44 x 11.5 cm

vestige of now: 5, 2016
acrylic, marble dust 16.9ct lemon gold leaf on linen and wood
27.2 x 35.4 x 4 cm
Private collection, Munich

vestige of now: 6, 2016
acrylic, marble dust, 6ct white gold leaf on linen, plaster gesso and wood
87 x 90 x 11 cm
Private collection, Munich

vestige of now: 7, 2016
acrylic, marble dust 16.9ct lemon & 6 ct white gold leaf on linen and wood
47 x 54.5 x 4.5 cm
Private collection, Munich

And I believe, we can change, 2015 - 2016
acrylic, marble dust and 16.9ct Lemon gold
leaf on linen and wood, 58.5 x 48.5 x 4 c
Private collection, Tegernsee

 

vestige of now: 3, 2016
acrylic and marble dust on linen
35 x 27 x 3 cm
Private collection, Paris






It’s not as strange as it might seem, 2016
acrylic and marble dust on linen and wood
45 x 35 x 2.5 cm
Private collection, Tegernsee






We can maake it more than a dream, 2015/16
Acrylic, marble dust, copper leaf. 22ct gold leaf
on linen and wood, 43,5 x 53,5 x 7,5 cm
Collection Australia, 2016

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