Exhibitions — chris tosic

Half Life at the Pictorem Gallery
PV Friday 17th Jan, 6-8.30pm.
Curated by @keaneartstudio
Open: 15th Jan – 1st Feb 2025, (Tue – Sat 10 – 5pm)
Last day: 1st Feb – 10-3pm

Pictorem Gallery
383 Hoe Street,
Walthamstow,
London, E17 9AP

Press Release
“Half Life” is an exploration of how temporal impermanence manifests in art, where some forms possess a mass and permanence that anchors them in reality, while others seem more ephemeral and fleeting. Through a curated collection of paintings, we examine the interplay between these qualities, observing how artists present these elements dynamically. Each piece tells a visual narrative of stability and transition, capturing the essence of fleeting moments. This juxtaposition underscores the transient nature of our existence, where what seems substantial today may fade into the ether tomorrow.

Join us as we navigate the continuum of permanence and impermanence, witnessing how art can encapsulate both the ephemeral and the eternal. This exhibition showcases the artistic representation of these themes and invites viewers to reflect on their own perceptions of permanence.

It Rose and It Fell
Terrace Open 2024
20 Years of @terrace_gallery
150 Painters – 150 Paintings
PV 6-9pm Wednesday 29.05.24
Open Sat–Sun 12 – 4PM - runs to 23.06.24
PATCHWORKS @patchworks.xyz,
258 Church Road,
London E10 7JQ

Orpheus Melting
The Art Space,
Cass Art,
103 Clarence Street,
Kingston upon Thames,
KT1 1QY.

Monday 8th January – Saturday 21st January, 2024

Curated by Peter Suchin and Chris Tosic

Material Base

Unit 5, Starling Court, I Nest Way (Cygnet Square), Thamesmead, London, SE2 9FJ.

Curated by Peter Suchin & Jon Ridge

3 — 25 November, 2023

Jon Ridge | Peter Suchin | Chris Tosic

Platforms Project, 2023
”Technopolis” City of Athens,
Pireos 100,
Athina 118 54,
Greece

Platforms Project in Athens is an annual gathering of spaces from around the world, all grass roots and artist led, that was founded by artist and curator Artemis Potamianou in 2013. The curator Iavor Lubomirov who runs Cabel Depot in Woolwich, will be in charge of a booth titled, Spin To Win. You can meet Iavor in Athens at his Spin To Win booth from the 26th to 29th of October.

Amongst the artists whose work is off to Athens are; Bob Bicknell-Knight, Francis Macdonald, Harry Pye, Suzanne Spiro, Chris Tosic, and Loretta Wall.

More details here and here.

Magnificent Seven
Cass Art Shop
66-67 Colebrooke Row, London, N1 8AB

Monday 28th August – Saturday 9th September, 2023

Curated by Harry Pye

FILET
103 Murray Grove,
London,
N1 7QP.

Forces of the Small: Project for an Artwork Compacted and Condensed
Curated by Peter Suchin and Sarah Woodfine
3 — 7 March, 2023

Press Release

According to Gaston Bachelard, “Miniature is one of the refuges of greatness.” * For this exhibition some 130 individuals have each contributed a single work whose sole criteria is that it occupy a space no larger than 7.5 x 10.5 x 7.5 centimetres. No other rules apply, with artists having free reign in terms of medium, production, and idea. Every work submitted has been displayed, provided it adheres to the stipulated restriction on size.

While the majority of contributors are MA Fine Art students at Camberwell College of Arts and are mostly at the beginning of their practice or career, their tutors and technical staff are also represented in this show. A further dozen artists from outside the college have been invited to submit works. The broader picture given here thereby ranges from the “student artist” to practitioners who regularly exhibit in established galleries. Forces of the Small is a playful microcosm of artistic production at the present time.

While nothing larger than the show’s strictly-set dimensions is included, pieces tending towards a further reduction in scale were welcome. Artists usually crave “visibility” but, here at Filet, invisibility apparently beckons, a perverse temptation for the ambitious artist keen to demonstrate their often-expansive concerns.

In asserting the power of the miniature over the gigantic, or even against the merely “standard” scale of most contemporary art, Bachelard highlights a sharp paradox. This exhibition encourages both intimacy and intensity through perceptual diminution; it modestly stages a large spectrum of responses to Bachelard’s difficult, but astute, demand.

*Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, 1969, p. 155.

Exhibition title from an essay by Peter Suchin, “Forces of the Small: Painting as Sensuous Critique”, in Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, The Future’s Mirror, Locus+, 1997.

Artists taking part:

Lucrezia Abatzoglu Melanie Ahmed Ramah AL Husseini Tom Allwinton Sofia Alrich Ran An John Peter Askew Susan Askew Paul Atkins Nele Bergmans Mujeeb Bhatti Keith Bowler Jessica Brauner Louise Bristow Maria Brito Clare Bryan Fiona de Bulat Martin Del Busto Cheryl Chen Danying Chen EC Ziqi Cheng Jacob Clayton Alexandra Costea Qiaolin Cui Yihao Cui Lin Ding Kimathi Donkor Max Dovey Hong Du James Duck Gavin Edmonds Matty Emery Geraint Evans Yilin Feng Yiran Feng Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau Breanna Gordon Changhong Han Zipei Han Astrid Harris Brian D Hodgson Jack Holme Xingxin Hu Xuaniun Huang Junnan Huang WenYu Huang Jane Hughes Xiaoyu Hui Carmen Van Huisstede Natsuki Iwamoto Alfred Kang Jianing Kang Madi Kavanagh Kate Kelly Aya Kikkawa Haerri Kin Yan Kong Stevie Ray Latham Simon Leahy-Clark Miyoung Han Lee Stephen Lee Tony Lee Chaohe Li Jiaxing Li Muchen Li Oli Li Shutong Li Xinlan Li Yu Li Xinyue Liang Hui Lin Nuoyi Lin Marco Livingstone Johanna Love Jingjing Ma Xinyue Ma Francesca McGowan Min Mao Helen Maurer Hao Ming Maria Moradi Kim L Pace Te Palandjian Kseniia Pasyura Chen Peng Chanin Polpanumas Amy Powel Jing Pu Jon Ridge Peter Roberts Hayde Sacerdote Christina Camilla Schön Maggie Shafran Cheng Shen Yanzhou Shen Yiwei Song Yuhuan Song Christine Stark Joy Stokes Eleanor Street Peter Suchin Changhong Sun Weiqi Sun Shang Tao Kate Terry Chris Tosic Tabitha Underhill Jamie Wagg Weirui Wang Yu-Chen Wang Wenying Wang Xiaoyu Wang Catrin Webster Brian Whitewick Sarah Woodfine Duncan Wooldridge Tianyang Xia Zhou Xiaoyu Chen Xie Meng Xu Starry Xu Zhen Yang Haoyang YeMiaomiao Yi Chen-Hung Yu Diyou Yu Yang Yue Jiaqi Yuwen Ruixiao Zhang Yuang Zhang Yuning Zhang Yuqi Zhang Shenyang Zhao Yushi Zheng Yi Zhou Xinyu Zhou Yingjun Zhu

Terrace Gallery
Champs Noir
Curated by Simon Leahy-clark
18 January — 12 February, 2023

Terrace Gallery

Group show including …

Michael Ashcroft @michael_ashcroft_studio

Bensley and Dipre @bensleyanddipre

Diane Bielik @dianebielik

Andy Black @andyblackart

Cedric Christie @cedricchristiestudio

Gemma Cossey @gemmacossey

Graham Crowley

A Ee @mungori_drawing

Nicky Hodge @nickyhodge4

Mandy Hudson @mandyhudson_paintings

Michael Kaul @michaelkaul_painting

Sarah Kent

Sharon Leahy-Clark @sharonleahyclark

Simon Leahy-Clark @simonleahyclarkstudio

Graham Lister @lister_art

Brendan Lyons @lyons.brendan

Alistair MacKillop @listermack

Mutalib Man @manmutalib

Enzo Marra @enzomarraart

Donna Mclean @mcleanpaintings

Neil Metzner @neil.metzner

Jane Millar @jmillarstudio

Josh Mitchell @totallycrafted_jmitchell

Jost Munster @jost_muenster

Stephen Palmer @spalmerama

Kasper Pincis @kasper_pincis

Andrew Seto @setoandrew

Peter Suchin

Sally Taylor @_sallytaylor__

Chris Tosic @chris_m_tosic

Mark Wainwright

Tom Wilmott @t0m_wilm0tt

Trace
Painting in a Painting of Itself
Curated by Peter Suchin & Chris Tosic
3 – 30 September, 2022

Group show including: Louise Bristow | Derek Hampson | Simon Patterson | Peter Suchin | Chris Tosic

Trace Gallery

Press Release:

This exhibition brings together several overlapping themes relating to the “position” or place of painting today. It takes its basic form from an important debate, now some eighty years old, involving the so-called Frankfurt School and its correspondents, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno. Brecht and Lukács took realism to be art’s most powerful critical response to the commodification of culture under Capitalism, while Adorno vociferously countered that it was only by abandoning representation per se that art could prevent its own imminent reduction to triviality and farce. For this uncompromising critic of society and culture, abstract art’s refusal to wave the banner of the Left, or indeed of any other party or stance, comprised its greatest strength. “If any social function can be ascribed to art at all,” Adorno noted, “it is the function to have no function.”

In the present display, works by two explicitly figurative painters, Louise Bristow and Derek Hampson, have been juxtaposed with abstract paintings by Peter Suchin and Chris Tosic, setting up what is effectively a spectrum or sliding-scale of painterly modes. Simon Patterson, whose practice has employed painting as well as many other visual/textual forms, has been invited to respond to this arrangement. His contribution may emphasise painting as an ancient and continuing practice or, conversely, cast doubt on the medium’s supposed certainties, opening up possibilities which direct the viewer’s attention towards entirely other areas of interest or concern.

The initial motivation for this show emerged from private discussions around the “validity” of abstract art today, when painting’s new-found popularity is paradoxically compromised by an expanded but incestuous art market, and through social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Supported by these now naturalised manners of transmission, “painting” is more widely disseminated than ever before, but at the cost of its sensuous materiality and experiential address. Has abstraction, once regarded as a critical, dissenting force, become mere decoration, a light aesthetic thrill, with figuration assuming the present mantle of seriousness and critique? Or, more extremely, can it be that the general category of painting has simply been rendered immaterial by conceptual, digital, and corporate channels of exchange? Prioritising specific artistic mediums may appear irrelevant under present conditions of culture, but artistic autonomy remains an indispensable feature of any artistic practice worthy of the name. As the Art & Language group – another central reference point for the present show – rightly insist, the only way to prevent artworks being co-opted by external interests is by maintaining “a certain internality” of structure or form, aesthetically sealing off the work from intrusion by unwanted ideologies. Despite their importance, in the 1960s and ’70s, as Conceptual Art pioneers, A&L have increasingly defended the critical potential of painting in preference to the too-readily institutionalised practices of their fellow Conceptualists. A&L consciously echo Adorno’s remarks on how works of art are “hermetically closed off and blind, yet able in their isolation to represent the outside world”. Such claims may be applied, in a positive fashion, to both the figurative and non-figurative works in Painting in a Painting of Itself.

It was Adorno too who recognised that “The only relation to art that can be sanctioned in a reality that stands under the constant threat of catastrophe is one that treats works of art with the same deadly seriousness that characterizes the world today”.

References in order of citation: Ernst Bloch, Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Aesthetics and Politics, NLB, 1977; Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, RKP, 1984, p. 322; Art & Language, “Feeling Good: The Aesthetics of Corporate Art”, in Armen Avanessian & Luke Skrebowski (Eds.), Aesthetics and Contemporary Art, Sternberg Press, 2011, p. 173. (See also Paul Wood, “Refusing to Die”, Art-Language, New Series Number 2, June 1997); Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, RKP, 1984, p. 257; Adorno, Prisms, MIT, 1981, p. 185.

Images from the show

Fitzrovia gallery
Le Document Print Fair
Group show, curated by Harry Pye
Monday 18 July – 22 July, 2022

http://fitzroviagallery.co.uk/

The Stash Gallery
John Lennon Is Not Dead exhibition
Group show, curated by Harry Pye
Friday 2nd Oct – Monday 26th Oct, 2021

A-Side/B-Side Gallery
Jo Mama’s Second Alphabet show
Group show, curated by Harry Pye
1 – 6 November, 2018

Magma bookshop
Produced a series of prints which were shown in London and Manchester, 2011

Sartorial Gallery, Notting Hill
4x4
Group show curated by Harry Pye
2011

The Barbican
The Free Art Fair, No.3
(An art fair where all the work was given away at the end)
Group show curated by Jasper Joffe & Harry Pye
12-18 October, 2009

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Art_Fair

Marble Arch
The Free Art Fair, No.2
(An art fair where all the work was given away at the end)
Group show curated by Jasper Joffe & Harry Pye
October, 2008

Participating artists: Artists Anonymous, Centre of Attention, Matthew Collings, Jimmy Conway-Dyer, Sacha Craddock, Stuart Cumberland, Adam Dant, Stephen Farthing, Rose Gibbs, Luke Gottelier, Alex Hamilton, Peter Harris, Pablo Helguera, Saron Hughes, Lee Johnson, Sayshun Jay, James Jessop, Chantal Joffe, Jasper Joffe, Peter Lamb, Cathy Lomax, Amanda Loomes, Marta Marce, Bruce McLean, Alex Gene Morrison, Stephen Nelson, House of O’Dwyer, Harry Pye, Danny Rolph, Martin Sexton, Bob & Roberta Smith, Terry Smith, Geraldine Swayne, Chris Tosic, Gavin Turk, Markus Vater, Stella Vine, Michael Ward, Douglas White, Charlie Woolley. With performances by: Laura Wilson, Frog Morris, Lee Campbell, Mark Dean Quinn, Dora Wade, Adrian Lee, Jenny Baines, Rebecca Birch, Calum F.Kerr, Jordan McKenzie, Charlotte Young, Victori Melody, Alex Staiger, Peter Bond, Sarah Turner, Daniel Lehan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Art_Fair

H-I-C-A
Concrete Now!
Group show
24 August - 28 September, 2008

Artist list:
David Bellingham
Richard Couzins
Alec Finlay
Peter Suchin
Chris Tosic

https://www.h-i-c-a.org/concrete-now.html

Outpost
Off
Group show
9 July – 19 August, 2006
In the former Eastern Electricity building, 4 Duke Street Norwich NR3 3AH

https://www.norwichoutpost.org/programme/off

Zoo Art Fair
With Hoxton Distillery
2005 – London

Kate MacGarry
Elk Rattle
Group show
Sam Basu, Tiago Carneiro Da Cunha, Chris Tosic, Justin Samson
12 November – 19 December, 2004

https://www.katemacgarry.com/exhibitions/63-elk-rattle-sam-basu-tiago-carneiro-da-cunha-chris-tosic/installation_shots/

Worn out wash monkeys
Group show, curated
2004

Cumberland Gardens, Rotherhithe
Freedom Fries
Group exhibition, curated by Nicholas Symes
2004

Henry Peacock Gallery
The Solar Anus
Group exhibition,
28 May – 3 July, 2004

Hoxton Distillery
Object
Dave Smith / Chris Tosic
16 Jan – 8 Feb, 2004

Jeffrey Charles Gallery
Chockerfuckingblocked
Group show curated by Dave Smith and Kev Rice
2003