Closer by Erika Toliusis
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Closer 2020

Erika Toliusis

CanvasOil paintPaint
80 ⨯ 80 ⨯ 4 cm
ConditionExcellent
Currently unavailable via Gallerease

  • About the artwork
    Erika Toliusis (UY)
    Familiar and surprising at the same time, that is often the first reaction when seeing the paintings of Erika Toliusis. Looking deeper for longer gives the feeling of liberating energy. Energy of optimism, growth, of infinite possibilities. Images of works by Turner, Homer or Bierstadt often spontaneously appear. Without affecting the unique energy in the works of Erika. The energy that is crucial for our survival, and our comfort zone that we experience so essential.

    Artist quote:
    "My will to paint comes from the innate urge to capture the magic of the moment, the light and perhaps a subtle sense of higher wisdom. I paint and rejoice in the freedom that makes it possible to create and recreate our world. A world full of wonders, with magical landscapes, oceans and a rhythm of constant transformation. Nature makes us all one, it unites all living things.

    Background
    Erika was born in Uruguay and studied at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Montevideo and at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts-USA. She herself names her grandfather as the most important role model and teacher. He taught her a completely unique way of looking at nature. Her earliest experiments with paint soon taught her that the brush is not all there is. Oil is her material and the palette knife is her instrument. Erika Toliusis is exclusively represented in the Benelux by The Obsession of Art.



  • About the artist

    When Erika Toliusis paints, every application is deliberate and precise. As she slashes and sculpts her way across the surface of the canvas using only a palette knife, the pictures created are stunning examples of hyperrealism. She retains, however, the spirit of an impressionist; her output occurs in series, devoting specific attention to a landscape feature, examining its visual phenomena and manipulating colour and tone to develop a range of atmospheric effects.

    The subject of waves is well suited to repetition in this sequence of works. Crashing in endless succession, ocean waves are a zen motif analogous to thoughts appearing and disappearing in the mind, or the rise and fall of the breath. Carving out the waves with sensuous precision, Toliusis establishes her own rhythm in concert with the pulsating tide of our planet inhaling and exhaling. This focus delves into a form of meditative abstraction – the same section of ocean forever producing an infinite number of images. In this sense, Toliusis consecrates a moment of time with each work, finding aesthetic significance in the arbitrary patterns invented by the peaks and rolls of the water.

    Erika has had over 30 solo exhibitions internationally including Canada, the United States, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin. Her works are included in corporate and private collections in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Hong Kong.