About Elsa Tomkowiak

Elsa Tomkowiak is a sculptor and makes installations that stand out for their expressive use of color. She was educated at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Dijon. She makes monumental objects, designed from light materials such as cardboard, plasterboard and plastic foil.

Her work is anchored and partly determined by the spaces she occupies. Her sculptures look like devices to experiment with, invite you to walk in or to cross. She operates on the boundaries of painting, sculpture, installation and land art.

The work of Elsa Tomkowiak highlights the transparency of materials. For example, OUT | Phébus’s Moire, set up at ART ZUID in 2019, allows you to see the outside world between the colored strips of PVC. The strips themselves were also slightly transparent. The tunnel which was more than 18 meters long, was made up of steel arches and horizontal plastic strips. It had a bend, which meant upon entering the work you could not see the exit.

Tomkowiak is concerned with the visitor’s experience. In this sense, the artist is part of a rich tradition of follies; useless, but fanciful structures in gardens and parks. In natural and urban spaces, almost all of her works are often located near historical monuments and unique and distinctive buildings. She made an extremely colorful swimming pool in Mönchengladbach, an opera house in Nantes and an abbey in Angers.  She has done the same with a spa but also in factories, churches and bridges.