Chaos//Kosmos is Ania Tomicka and Erica Calardo‘s double solo show at Pink Zeppelin Gallery (Berlin). The exhibition opened in September 5th, 2014; and their works will be on view through November 8th, 2014.
Ania Tomicka was born in 1985 in Lodz, Poland. She moved to Italy when she was 9, and started to draw seriously. First starting with manga and over time progressing to a more realistic style. She attended an art Institute and graduated in 2004. During those school years, she started to paint with oil colors, a technique that soon became her favorite.
Ania attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice where she found a lot of inspiration for her art. A year after that, she moved to Tuscany where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence. During this time, she started to focus her interest on digital art, illustration and new materials (eg. wood). She then went to (and graduated from) the academy of digital arts NEMO NT where she was awarded “Student of the Year”.
Though her current works are inspired by the American Pop Surrealist movement, Ania has always been interested in realistic, renaissance works. Her first loves are Salvador Dalì and Wojtek Siudmak’s big canvases, full of absurd and strange creations, painted in divine ways.
“In the space suspended between heaven and earth, deep in the mist where Chaos dwells, eery creatures emerge. Suspended on the threshold of dreams, Cosmos shapes whimsical figures inhabiting an enchanted time. Two artists tell their tales, looking for the secret order behind creativity. These are tales of dichotomy, of warmth and coldness, of the struggle of perfection against the shapeless, laying between motion and stillness.Through the analysis of the concepts of dichotomy, of double, of the fighting contrast of souls, the two artists are here looking for a synthesis, where different, distinguishable figures merge into a dreamy state of harmony, a parallel world where all the lost find home and rest.” – Erica Calardo
Erica Calardo is a Bologna-based painter and modal logician. Her works in oil, watercolour, and pencil are windows on the solitude of lost souls. She explores the realm of beauty, the grotesque as well as magic, by creating eery oneiric feminine figures who tell tales of long forgotten dreams, of an imaginary timeless past.
Erica’s technique is strongly influenced by Italian old masters, especially the Mannerists and the Baroque female school from Bologna. She is self-taught and has learned her skills from books written in the Renaissance and Baroque era. She counts as her masters Leonardo, Lavinia Fontana, Bronzino.
Since 2010, she has showcased her work in galleries in Italy (Mondo Bizzarro, Studio21), and abroad (Auguste Clown – Australia, Modern Eden, Swoon, Flower Pepper, WWA, and Spoke Art – USA among others, and is soon coming to La Luz de Jesus (Los Angeles, CA) and Distinction (Escondido, CA).
Besides painting, Erica is currently a post doctoral fellow at the University of Bologna, conducting her research in modal logic. She has a degree in Philosophy and a Ph.D. in mathematical logic. She also recently curated Ania Tomicka’s first solo show at Mondo Bizzarro Gallery, Italy.
Erica is in love with ancient castles, old christmas postcards, memento mori from the Victorian Age, logic, history of art, four poster beds, baroque clothing, fairytales, mirrors, harpsichords, ghost stories, and punk rock.
L-R: Sebastiano and Fabiana (the owners of Pink Zeppelin Gallery, Erica Calardo, Ania Tomicka.
