Aida Tomescu facts for kids

Aida Tomescu (born in October 1955) is a famous Australian artist. She is well-known for her abstract paintings, drawings, and collages. Abstract art uses shapes, colors, and lines instead of showing things exactly as they look. Aida Tomescu has won many important art awards. These include the Dobell Prize for Drawing, the Wynne Prize for Landscape, and the Sir John Sulman Prize. These awards are given by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Early Life and Art Training

Aida Tomescu was born in October 1955 in Bucharest, Romania. She lived there until she was 23 years old. In May 1980, she moved to Australia.

Studying Art in Romania

In the early 1970s, Aida studied at the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest. This school taught students how to create art by focusing on structure and composition. She learned how to put artworks together in a strong way. In 1977, she earned her diploma in painting. Just two years later, she had her very first art show by herself.

Moving to Australia and New Ideas

After moving to Australia, Aida continued her art studies. In 1983, she finished a special diploma in visual arts at the City Art Institute in Sydney.

While studying in Romania, Aida became very interested in the work of artist Paul Cézanne. She also learned about Cubism, an art style that uses geometric shapes. She read a famous book called Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky. This book talks about the deeper meaning in art. When she came to Australia, she was ready to focus on abstract painting. She has been dedicated to this style ever since.

Aida Tomescu's Art Career

Aida Tomescu's art slowly changed towards abstract styles. She once said that when she came to Australia, she started using bigger canvases. She needed to find new ways to express herself in her art.

What Influences Her Art?

Aida's artworks are inspired by many different things. She has a deep knowledge of art history. She studies how old masters like Giotto, Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian created their paintings. She learns from their rich ideas and how they built their artworks. Her art is also influenced by Paul Cézanne and Cubism. The ideas from Kandinsky's book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, also play a big part.

Working with Prints

In 1986, Aida was invited to the Victorian Print Workshop. This place is now called the Australian Print Workshop. She always thought drawing was very important for her art. Working with etching plates there was a new experience. She learned to be less focused on perfect precision. She loved how the acid in etching changed her drawings. It made her images feel "vulnerable" and "open."

Today, you can find Aida Tomescu's art through Flowers Gallery and Jensen Gallery.

Art Shows and Exhibitions

Aida Tomescu had her first art show in 1979 in Bucharest. It featured still-life paintings. Since then, she has shown her art often in Australia and around the world. She has had over 30 solo exhibitions, which means shows where only her art is displayed.

Early Exhibitions

From 1985 to 1995, Aida showed her dark abstract paintings regularly at the Coventry Gallery in Sydney. In 1987, she exhibited in Canberra. An art critic named Sasha Grishin noted that her work reminded him of an older style called abstract expressionism.

In 1991, a smaller version of a big exhibition called Abstraction was shown. An art critic named Sonia Barron felt that Aida's dark, expressive paintings showed a "spiritual anxiety."

In 1994, a collector named Chandler Coventry showed 300 prints he owned. This collection included 10 works by Aida Tomescu. Sasha Grishin said that her work showed she was one of the best artists using "gestural abstraction" in Australia. This style uses bold, sweeping brushstrokes.

Major Exhibitions and Tours

In 2009, a large exhibition of her work, Aida Tomescu: Paintings and Drawings, was held at the Drill Hall Gallery. Art critic John McDonald admired her use of color and texture. He described her paint as being applied in "concrete-like slabs." He found her drawings to be a "frenzied mass of squiggles." He thought her art was "alive and convincing."

Her graphic works were also shown in a big exhibition called Out of Australia at the British Museum in London in 2011.

Aida Tomescu's art was part of another major traveling exhibition. This show, called Abstraction: Celebrating Australian Women Abstract Artists, toured from 2017 to 2019. It featured art from the National Gallery of Australia.

Other important exhibitions include:

• The Triumph of Modernism at TarraWarra Museum of Art
• Art Basel Hong Kong (in 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2015)
• Wet, Wet, Wet at Fox Jensen McCrory Auckland (2019)
• The Anatomy of Gesture at Fox Jensen McCrory Auckland (2017)
• Chromoffection at Fox Jensen McCrory Auckland (2016)
• The Heide Collection at Heide Museum of Modern Art (2015)
• Vibrant Matter at TarraWarra Museum of Art (2013)
• The Mind’s Eye at Art Gallery of South Australia (2013)
• Forever Young at Heide Museum of Modern Art (2011)
• Contemporary Encounters at Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria (2010)

Awards and Special Projects

Aida Tomescu has won many important awards for her art:

• Sir John Sulman Prize, 1996 (for her painting Grey to Grey)
• The Wynne Prize, 2001
• The Dobell Prize for Drawing, 2003
• Winner of the first LFSA Arts 21 Fellowship at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, 1996, Melbourne
• Victorian Print Workshop residency, Myer Art Foundation, 1986

Art in Collections

Aida Tomescu's artworks are held in many important art collections around the world. This means museums and galleries have bought her art to keep and show to the public. Some of these include:

• National Gallery of Australia (71 works, including Seria Unu I-IV 1993, Ithaca II 1999, Alba II 2002, Phosphor II 2005, A long line in the sand III 2021, and Ithaca V 1997)
• National Gallery of Victoria (9 works, including Oz and Seria Unu III)
• Art Gallery of New South Wales (27 works, including Neagru I(1991), Seria Unu I-IV(1993), Grey to Grey(1995), Ithaca I-X(1997), Seria Neagra I-IV(1999), Patru II (1999), Marea Neagra (2002), Negru I, III, IV (2002), Aqua Alta (2008), and Sewn onto Stones in the Sky (2019))
• Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand (Zattere/Margharita)
• British Museum, London (11 works, including Ithaca I- X (1997) and Untitled (1988))
• QAGOMA (2 works, Semn 1990, and Vis 1, Vis 2, Vis 3)
• Art Gallery of South Australia