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Details
- Other Title
- Negru II
- Place where the work was made
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Sydney
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New South Wales
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Australia
- Date
- 2002
- Media categories
- Drawing , Print
- Materials used
- white pastel, drawn on lift-ground aquatint, printed in black ink
- Dimensions
- 120.0 x 81.0 cm sheet; 134.3 x 94.8 x 4.2 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r. corner, black pastel "ACT '02".
Signed and dated u.l. corner, verso, pencil "Aida Tomescu/ ... 2002"- Credit
- Gift of the artist 2003
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 439.2003
- Copyright
- © Aida Tomescu/Copyright Agency
- Artist information
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Aida Tomescu
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Tomescu’s drawings are characteristically gestural and layered, and occasionally include collage. She first began making pastel drawings on prints in 1986 while producing etchings with printer John Loane, as a way of maintaining her continuity of thought during the printmaking process. Later, however, they became an independent part of her practice for a time and she had etchings specially printed for drawing on, as she was attracted to their surface quality and the contrast this made with her drawing materials.
Tomescu’s drawings are an open-ended form of inquiry into the process of drawing itself, in which the interaction of marks and surface are poetic and allusive, rather than representing a narrative. Stemming partly from earlier works such as her ‘Negra’ series of lithographs, 'Negru IV' and 'Negru III' are from a group of works made concurrently in 2002 on the theme of blackness – ‘Negru’ is the Romanian word for ‘black’. Of these, four became the 'Negru' suite that includes this diptych (of the others, 'Negru II' was gifted to the Gallery in 2003, while 'Negru I' remains in a private collection).
The series was triggered by the memory of a powerful small painting by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (1919–87), 'A candle in a dark room' 1947 – a work that was itself inspired by McCahon’s meeting with a poet. While the drawings complement each other and were dependent on each other in the drawing process, each ultimately can be seen as individual works of art.
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Places
Where the work was made
Sydney
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Aida Tomescu (2003), Niagara Galleries, Richmond, 05 Aug 2003–30 Aug 2003
Contemporary Australian Drawing: 20 Years of the Dobell Drawing Prize, Grafton Regional Gallery, , 15 Feb 2013–24 Mar 2013
Contemporary Australian Drawing: 20 Years of the Dobell Drawing Prize, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Booragul, 30 Mar 2013–05 May 2013
Contemporary Australian Drawing: 20 Years of the Dobell Drawing Prize, Orange Regional Gallery, Orange, 05 Jul 2013–18 Aug 2013
Contemporary Australian Drawing: 20 Years of the Dobell Drawing Prize, National Art School, Darlinghurst, 29 Aug 2013–06 Oct 2013
Contemporary Australian Drawing: 20 Years of the Dobell Drawing Prize, Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre, Murwillumbah, 18 Oct 2013–24 Nov 2013
Contemporary Australian Drawing: 20 Years of the Dobell Drawing Prize, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, 11 Apr 2014–18 May 2014
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Bibliography
Referenced in 3 publications
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Hendrik Kolenberg, Contemporary Australian Drawing: 20 years of the Dobell Prize for Drawing, ‘Introduction’, pg. 6-14, Sydney, 2012, 8, 40, 41 (colour illus.).
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Hendrik Kolenberg and Anne Ryan, The Dobell Prize for Drawing: 1993-2004, 'Prize winners', pg. 15-39, Sydney, 2004, 36 (colour illus.).
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Niagara Galleries, Aida Tomescu, Richmond, 2003, 24 (colour illus.). cat.no. 19
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