Faraway So Close

Concerned primarily with the medium of painting, the work of Tina Gillen examines how we relate to the world around us, namely through the themes of landscape and dwelling. Her paintings often originate in photographic images that she modifies, simplifies, pictorially "translates," and pairs with other elements to arrive at compositions that purposefully nurture a certain ambiguity, somewhere between abstraction and figuration, construction and improvisation, the surface of the canvas and the translation of a space. This book is being published in conjunction with her exhibition Faraway So Close, presented at the Luxembourg Pavilion as part of the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Richly illustrated, the catalogue also includes three essays addressing various aspects of Tina Gillen’s work—the relationship between painting and space, the ties between painting and photography, and the meaning of landscape today—as well as an extensive interview with the artist.