TOMAS UMRIAN CONTEMPORARY

The Seduction of Forms Covering, surface, form: if we look at technologies generally, these words frame our first contact with them. More precisely, the contact of users, whose senses determine their positive or negative relationship with them. We choose products on the basis of whether we like them or not. Surface, form, design, shape, material, structure etc.: all of that creates an aesthetic of media which today assaults us ever more intensively from all sides (advertising has never been so individually orientated and so sophisticated in its targeting). Technologies have a diversity of aesthetic forms that is boundless; its richness is determined by the purpose which the specific thing fulfils. The aesthetic of technological media is a kind of stimulant of our senses, playing a game with them that simply activates our enjoyment. Harmonically fluent or mutually contrasting colours, shapes and forms — these create a potential idea of ownership, generating a desire whose foundations are woven together in the aesthetic relationship with the thing itself. That is the beauty of design, which leaves us unable to shake off the feeling that what we are observing creates only a purely positive feeling from the thing’s observation. We presume that the thing has a specific purpose which makes it what it is, and likewise we presume there will be practical benefits from owning it.

1987 born in Bratislava Education 2006 – 2012 Master of Arts: Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, department: Painting, studio: +-XXI, prof. Daniel Fischer 2015 Art Doctorate residency, Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, department: Intermedia III, Tomáš Vaněk 2013 – Editor and co-founder of Magazine X about Contemporary Drawing 2013 – 2016 Art Doctorate, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, department: Painting, studio: Mal+by, Klaudia Kosziba Group exhibitions 2021 Reframing possibilities, Soda gallery, Paris, FR 2018 I made a line, Soda gallery, Bratislava, SK 2018 Art Connects, Budavári Mikve, Budapest, HU 2018 Headlands Art Auction, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, San Francisco, US 2016 Edition 2016, Soda gallery, Bratislava, SK 2016 A je tu zas, Kunsthalle, Bratislava, SK 2016 Měsíc v ůnoru, tříbení ascendentů, Gallery Industra, Brno, CZ 2015 POKOJE 4, Containall, Prague, CZ 2015 RESET, Trienale of drawing and small object, Gallery J. Kollár, Banská štiavnica, SK 2015 Zlínsky salón mladých, Regional Art Gallery in Zlin, Zlín, CZ 2014 Tracing memories, VAAL Gallery, Tallin, EST 2014 Wandering through the memory of photography, SALA DOGANA, Janov, IT 2014 Rozmanitosť nutná, Slovak national gallery, Bratislava, SK 2014 LED TYPE!, Space gallery, Bratislava, SK

Gallery established by TOMAS UMRIAN is a Bratislava and Paris – based gallery dealing exclusively in critically acclaimed, important works of contemporary art produced by very young, emerging and high-caliber central and Eastern European artists. Since opening its doors in 2014, it has been home to innovative, singular and pioneering exhibitions across a variety of media and genres, tracing the latest trends in contemporary curating. Currently, gallery represents 17 multi generation artists, and hosting 7-8 gallery based exhibitions a year. From 2014 has been successfully engaging in the art fairs world (Frieze Masters, Frieze London, Frieze New York, FIAC PARIS, Artissima, Miart Milano, …etc.) systematically every year, presenting solo and group shows of EEU artists. In addition to its gallery activities, gallery is presently developing several projects – location in Paris, Brussels and space in Venice. In an attempt to bring contemporary EEU art to a foreign audience and to initiate international cooperation and exchange in the field of art, gallery organizes at least four exhibition annually in the premises of its foreign partners, which reciprocally dedicates its home space to the performance of foreign artists in Bratislava.