Oliver Osborne Hayley Tompkins 17 April - 24 June 2018 Opening: Friday, 20 April, 7pm Oliver Osborne’s paintings bring together elements of abstraction, figuration and appropriation without hierarchy. Silk-screens of appropriated cartoons, pages from language textbooks, large multi-panelled monochrome canvases, embroidery and precisely executed paintings of figures and objects are all part of his repertoire. By using this broad visual language he attempts to push against the traditional divergence between abstraction and figuration, and understand what potential the act of painting still holds within contemporary art. The exhibition at Bonner Kunstverein is a new commission and is Osborne’s first major solo exhibition in Germany. Oliver Osborne (born 1985 Edinburgh, Scotland, lives and works in Berlin, Germany) has held solo exhibitions at Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2017); Peles Empire, Berlin (2016); Vilma Gold, London (2016); Gió Marconi, Milan (2015); Catherine Bastide, Brussels (2015). Other recent exhibitions include: Plant Scenery of the World, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2017); Home is not a place, German Embassy, London (2017); The Written Trace, Paul Kasmin, New York (2015); The Funnies, MOT International, Brussels (2015); The Go Between, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples and Sprovieri, London (2014); Everything Falls Faster Than An Anvil, Pace Gallery, London (2014); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, ICA, London (2012). Hayley Tompkins works with painting, photography and found objects to make installations that highlight the process of looking and experiencing space. Through her practice she seeks to understand objects in the world through an examination of the mimetic quality of paint and painting. For Tompkins the act of painting is a process of thinking and exploring, rather than as a means to simply produce paintings. Her work attempts to find new ways to challenge and explore painting’s transformational possibilities, in order to construct a balance between the pictorial and the physical. The exhibition at Bonner Kunstverein is a new commission and is Tompkin’s first major solo exhibition in Germany. Hayley Tompkins (born 1971 Leighton Buzzard, England, lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland) has represented Scotland at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 and was featured in the British Art Show 8 2015–17. Selected solo presentations include: The Common Guild, Glasgow (2014); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2013); Currents, Studio Voltaire, London (2011); A Piece of Eight, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow (2011); Autobuilding, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2009); and Re, The Drawing Room, London (2008). Selected group presentations include: The Persistence of Objects, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, curated by the Common Guild (2015); The Grass is Singing, Mendes Wood DM, São Paolo, curated by The Modern Institute (2015); I Cheer a Dead Man’s Sweetheart, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill (2014); The Imminence of Poetics, São Paolo Biennale, Sao Paolo (2012); and Watercolour, Tate Britain, London (2011). Tompkins work is held in several public collections including the Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the British Council Collection, London; Bard College of Art, New York; The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; and Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.