Gideon Tomaschoff
February 23 - March 29, 2008
Gideon Tomaschoff is an Israeli-Canadian painter who describes his art and process of making art as an attempt to extract beauty out of what is commonly perceived as its opposite. His surfaces are built and then scraped mimicking weather worn walls patinated by the passage of time. Tomaschoff has traveled extensively in Cuba, Brazil and Mexico and has been inspired by the beauty and complex color and markings of walls.
Tomaschoff's paintings immediately bring to mind the meditative aspects of Mark Rothko and other abstract expressionist painters. He is inspired by the work of Clifford Still, Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell.
About the surfaces, Tomaschoff explains that they are not merely external elements, they are also witnesses of their surroundings and in the creation process many marks and scars are revealed and a whole new surface is pieced together.
As a new surface is being formed, a synthesis between the work and the artist and between the work and the observer are created. Curiosity is awakened in the observer to explore the many secrets visually embedded in the painted surface.
The painting begins as a journey, or better, with dislodging experiences lived up until the moment.
