Luis Tomasello

Internationally renowned in the Kinetic and Optical Art movements, Argentinian artist Luis Tomasello is best known for his incandescent pieces that combine printmaking, sculpture and painting to create atmospheric abstractions. The son of an Italian house painter and bricklayer, Tomasello learned the craft of construction early on, applying childhood skills to his early work alongside painters like Emilio Pettoruti and Carmelo Arden Quin, two key artists in the Argentine avant-garde. Tomasello began working with geometric abstraction after a trip to Europe in 1945, and after engaging with a large group of Latin American kinetic artists working in France, he relocated permanently to Paris in 1951. Inspired by artists like Mondrian and the luminosity of medieval stained glass in landmarks like the Chartres Cathedral, Tomasello began experimenting with light, color and optics in his work.

Like many of the artists creating constructivist abstract work in the mid-1950s, Tomasello soon shifted into Optical Art, a movement that would ultimately culminate in a project Tomasello refers to as Atmospheres chromoplastiques. The pieces are usually comprised of constructed or rendered white shapes—cubes, tetragons and triangles—positioned on a white background to reflect florescent colors on the underside. Creating a  glowing visual encounter, that evolves through movement and changes in light quality, Tomasello’s work transforms structure into sensation.

Tomasello has had a number of solo exhibitions since the 1960s, including Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris, France, Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Museo de Bellas Artes, Pamplona, Spain, Casa de las Américas, Havana, Museo Nacional Neuquén, Argentina, and Sicardi Gallery, Houston, among many others. In 2004 a career retrospective was exhibited at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano, La Plata. In addition to exhibiting internationally, Tomasello has created a number of large-scale public art commissions in France, Argentina, Mexico, and the United States.