Marek Tobolewski

Nottingham , Nottinghamshire , United Kingdom

About Marek Tobolewski

English b.1964 Lives & works in Nottingham UK. Resident artist at PRIMARY Nottingham ... Recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award ... "... Marek Tobolewski'’s work continues to entrance and mystify... CiS is the most impressive show of Tobolewski’s I have ever seen ... his artistic practice seems to be a never-ceasing journey along a single path, continually striving for new insights and perfections." Andrew Cooper-NVA Ed A constant in the artists formal abstraction is the arc of a circle, albeit in a state of perpetual evolution and a preoccupation with the endless reinvention of his own compositions; he continually returns to existing works, adjusting structures and refining each individual flow of a line in an attempt to reveal balance and perfect form. The new work in his Continuum series has been concerned with symmetry and reflection. Rotating and mirroring linear forms, layering surfaces of pure colour and exposing under-painting through negative lines.

Education:

BA (Hows) Painting Brighton Polytechnic, England 1986

Events:

Selected artist for The Other Art Fair London 2017

Recipient of several awards notably from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation awarded to artists with established ability, work is held in private, corporate and permanent public collections in UK & USA and have been commissioned both privately and corporately. Notably the 5 metre triptych 3LC SymM+R RBb for the Music Recital Hall foyer at the University of Nottingham.

A 60 page Catalogue available "Continuum in Symmetry - New Drawings & Paintings" Djanogly Art Gallery - Lakeside Arts Centre - Nottingham
(20 copies left)

EXHIBITION REVIEWS

Pick of the week - Robert Clark, Guardian
"Marek Tobolewski's exhibition is titled Sym, with individual paintings and drawings going under names such as 2LC DipSym Neg and 1LC SymM+R. The fact that such designations come across as suggestive of cryptic or downright impenetrable technical formulae to most of us might stress the artist's apparent reliance on precise systems of procedure, but this in no way distracts from the work's enduring enigmatic lure. Tobolewski might skirt dangerously close to the kind of spaced-out geometric mannerisms that, in a less sensitive artist, would betray a paperback misreading of the cosmic implications of chaos theory. Yet his is a rare skill in being able to make such references at the same time as imbuing every one of his swirling lines with a highly personal lyrical grace.

This is art that comes over all joyous although it has obviously been achieved through sustained reflective struggle.”

extracts from reviews of Continuum in Symmetry

Pick of the week - Robert Clark, Guardian
"Collectively titled Continuum In Symmetry, Marek Tobolewski's recent paintings and drawings present variations on taking a line for a distinctly worm-like walk. Subtle surfaces are worked and reworked to form a ground for linear improvisations that look like the rhythmic markings below the high tide line on a wet beach. Despite their apparent aesthetic gracefulness, there is something almost obsessive in these relentless organic abstractions. One cannot but wonder at the artist's patience as he works with no end in sight to these seemingly aimless graphic meanderings. It is this very slight sense of unease that establishes a kind of psychological undertow."

Interface AN - Ruth Solomons is an artist based in London, 2010
Marek's emphasis on drawing permeates the paintings, leaving traces of the decision-making process underlying each paintings' construction. Serial circular arcs imitate and perfect a natural curve of an artists' reach, with gestation periods between each decision point: like a time-line, accelerating and slowing. At times lines become dense: deliberated in twists and junctures. Restlessly fluctuating they give a feeling of lightness and air, a three-dimensional nest-space. Your eye dances with the changing directionality: parallel, divergent or convergent, implying perspective in silhouetted three-dimensional form. Your eye dances not just across the plane of the painting but also backwards and forwards in the three-dimensional area between you and the painting.

"As the seasons go round and round" - Andrew Cooper NVA Editor
"Nottingham artist Marek Tobolewski’s work continues to entrance and mystify. Continuum In Symmetry Djanogly Gallery, Lakeside till 13 June, is the most impressive show of Tobolewski’s I have ever seen. His work seems to have expanded to fill the crisp open spaces of the Djanogly Gallery and the audacity and ambition of his 20-year project are at last given a stage on which to express themselves. ...

For me, this exhibition achieves a grandeur I had not previously expected to see in Tobolewski’s work. The painstaking repetition of the circles had in the past suggested something smaller, more precise, more intricate but without the sense of presence that the grandest art necessarily creates. In this big gallery the work comes into itself."

Exhibitions:

Recent:

Expanded Studio Project
PS2
22-31 August 2019
Belfast, Northern Ireland UK

Secret Postcatd Show
The Old Lock Up Gallery
30th August - 22 September 2019
Cromford, UK

Grouped
DTG2
4 - 30 April 2019
Decatur, GA, USA

Math+Art
Different Trains Gallery 2
27th March - 18 May 2018
Decatur, GA, USA

The Other Art Fair London
5th – 8th October 2017
Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL

Solo Exhibitions - selected

2017 The Other Art Fair - London
2013 Betwen the Lines - Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.
2011 Sym - Tarpey Gallery, Castle Donington
2010 Continuum in Symmetry - Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham.
2009 Continuum - HIVE Gallery, Barnsley.
2003 A line seen + felt - Bridlesmith Gate Gallery, Nottingham.
1995 New York Paintings - East Midlands Arts Board, Loughborough.
1994 Disintegration - Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham.
Axis - Yarrow Gallery, Oundle.
1992 Open - Galerie OZ, Paris.
1991 Paper Works - Galerie Art Plan, Paris.
Innercore - Galerie OZ, Paris.
1989 Paintings - Nottingham Castle.

Group Exhibitions - Selected
2018 Math+Art, Different Trains Gallery 2, Decatur USA
2017 Different Trains, inaugural exhibition, Decatur USA
British Printmakers in the American South,
Sycamore Place Gallery, Atlanta USA
2014 Carnival of Monsters, Bartons Nottingham
2013 Open - shortlisted Nottingham Castle
2012 Painting Now, Nottingham Castle
2011 Salon Art Prize 2011 - Matt Robert Arts, London
4Can+2 - Surface Gallery, Nottingham
2010 The year they met - NS Project Nottingham.
Reunion - Oldknows Building, Nottingham.
Occidental Dimension - UoB Gallery, Brighton.
2009 Small works - Claire White Gallery, Barnsley.
2008 Last Call Vinson Gallery, Atlanta.
Present - Hive Gallery, Elsecar, Barnsley.
Decade Vinson Gallery, Atlanta
2004 Remote Drawing - Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham.
2003 Art for Life - Christies, London.
2002 Art from the studios - Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham Castle.
2001 Another view of Wright - Derby Museum & Art Gallery.
British Artists - Createx Museum of the Southwest, Texas USA.
H2O British Contemporary Art - Brahm Gallery, Leeds.
2000 Summer show - Royal Academy, London.
1999 Circa ng - Bonington Gallery, Nottingham.
1996 Contemporary Painters & Sculptors - Air Gallery, London.
1995 Young British Abstraction - Silverstein Gallery, New York, USA.
1989 Starting a Collection - Warwick Arts Trust, London.
The Abstract Show - The Young Unknowns Gallery, London.