TARIK BERBER | Solo Exhibition at ArtMoorHouse |

TARIK BERBER

Tarik Berber Tarik Berber’s work offers a remarkable combination of two very different cultural worlds. He is of Bosniac origin. That is to say, he comes from the Muslim population of the always-contested territory of Bosnia, once part of the former Yugoslavia and now independent. Bosnia has a notably rich and complex cultural tradition and Tarik is a descendant of a celebrated family of artists. As a working artist, he still maintains close ties with the milieu from which he originates.

He trained, however, at the celebrated Florentine Academy, which offers perhaps the most rigorous of all trainings for painters. They grind their own colours, mix their own paints and make their own brushes, just as the apprentices did in the studios of the great Renaissance masters.

This profound respect for tradition shows itself very clearly in Berber’s work. His paintings, with their muted colours, often have the appearance of frescos. They also demonstrate a keen interest in classical principles of design – in the relationship of the form to the edges of the space within which they have been placed.

in his native region. On the one hand, there is a strong classical element, which may at times remind one, not so much of Renaissance paintings and frescos, as of the Ancient Roman paintings to be seen in Pompeii. On the other hand,

There are, in addition, things that announce themselves as being entirely contemporary, very much of our own time – for example the striking portraits of Jamaican Rastafarians that reference a ‘scene’ that is as profoundly anticlassical in spirit as anything one could imagine. These portraits nevertheless demonstrate Tarik Berber’s strengths as

The eclecticism of Tarik Berber’s work is personal, yet is at the same time symbolic of much that is happening in the the world and from old epochs, from Palaeolithic times to our own, are readily available to young artists, and indeed to all the rest of us provided we have access to a computer. Historical hierarchies are vanishing – art from every epoch is immediately ours, if we wish it to be so. Geographical boundaries are also tending to dissolve.

is collectively ahead of the game, is becoming unfeasible. Currently attempted substitutes for genuinely new ways of seeing the world, for example an insistence on sexual shock or on raucous political activism, are only a kind of ersatz version of real innovation, and audiences are beginning to realise it. The result has been the gradual emergence of a new generation of artists, less interested in avant-garde identity, much more interested in locating the true creative self. Tarik Berber is one of those artists.

Art Historian, Critic & Author

1 Mystique 1 oil on canvas 140 x 240 cm (55 x 94 in) ÂŁ 8,750

2 Mystique 2 oil on canvas 160 x 240 cm (63 x 94 in) ÂŁ 8,750

3 Mystique 3 oil on canvas 140 x 240 cm (55 x 94 in) ÂŁ 8,750

4 Mystique 4 oil on canvas 140 x 240 cm (55 x 94 in) ÂŁ 8,750

7 Sammy 3 oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in) ÂŁ 5,500

8 Lady with Titanium White Petal oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in) ÂŁ 5,500

9 Lady in Fallow Desert Sand Stripes oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in) ÂŁ 5,500

10 Lady in Dark Olive Green Stripes oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in) ÂŁ 5,500

11 Lady in Black & White Stripes oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in) ÂŁ 5,500

12 Charlie San oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in) ÂŁ 5,500

13 San Sebastiano oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in) ÂŁ 5,500

17 Woman in English Lavender oil on canvas 60 x 55 cm (24 x 22 in) ÂŁ 3,500

18 Woman in Catalina Blue oil on canvas 60 x 55 cm (24 x 22 in) ÂŁ 3,500

19 Bebop I oil on canvas 55 x 60 cm (22 x 24 in) ÂŁ 3,500

20 Untitled 9 oil on canvas 55 x 60 cm (22 x 24 in) ÂŁ 3,500

21 Untitled 11 oil on canvas 55 x 60 cm (22 x 24 in) ÂŁ 3,500

22 Untitled 18 oil on canvas 55 x 60 cm (22 x 24 in) ÂŁ 3,500

23 Blacks London 2 mixed media on paper 35 x 50 cm (14 x 19.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

24 Blacks London 3 mixed media on paper 30 x 42 cm (12 x 16.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

25 Blacks London 5 mixed media on paper 35 x 50 cm (14 x 19.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

26 Blacks London 7 mixed media on paper 35 x 50 cm (14 x 19.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

27 Blacks London 8 mixed media on paper 35 x 50 cm (14 x 19.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

28 Blacks London 9 mixed media on paper 35 x 50 cm (14 x 19.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

29 Blacks London 11 mixed media on paper 35 x 50 cm (14 x 19.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

30 Blacks London 12 mixed media on paper 30 x 42 cm (12 x 16.5 in) ÂŁ 1,850

31 Warehouse “2 Psycadelic Chairs” mixed media on paper 35 x 51 cm (14 x 20 in) £ 1,850

32 Warehouse “Chairs” mixed media on paper 33 x 47 cm (13 x 18.5 in) £ 1,850

33 Warehouse “Unit 12” mixed media on paper 33 x 47 cm (13 x 18.5 in) £ 1,850

Tarik Berber Born in Banjaluka (Bosnia) in 1980. Studied at Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence. Lives and works in London.

Due to the Yugoslavian War, as a child he left his own country and settled with his family in Bolzano, Italy.

Even before moving to Florence to continue his academic studies, while still very young, he had already received recognition and exemplary acknowledgements of esteem. Before the age of twenty-one he had already had public shows in Empoli and Mugello, before coming into contact with the prestigious Poggiali & Forconi Gallery in Florence. At the inauguration of the new Museo di Arte Contemporanea of Isernia, MACI, in the spring of 2004, the youngest artist invited to display, he presented a painting of expressionist critics and public. The most important Fairs then consolidated an exceptional interest in his work.

He was invited to exhibit at the Museo della Civiltà Romana in Rome, at the Second Biennial InTranSito, in Sassoferrato at the 55th Rassegna Internazionale d’Arte G. B. Salvi Aperture, curated by Mauro Corradini, and then, by Alessandro Riva in Catania in the Le Ciminiere space, and at the 2nd Rassegna Internazionale a one-man show at the eighteenth-century residence of Villa Pisani, the Museo Nazionale of Strà in the Province of Venice.

two hand-drawn animations, which gained the attention of BBC, InsideArt and Vimeo Staff Picks among others. While developing a new concept for his upcoming paintings, he is currently working on illustrating a book of poems by Rod Stern.

Solo Exhibitions:

2015

”FLOW” Darren Baker Gallery, Curated by Jason Colchin-Carter & Agnieszka Perche, London

”FLOW” G&M Galeria, Tuzla

“Mostra di disegni”, Etrarte, Florence

2015

Darren Baker Gallery, London, curated by Jason Colchin Carter and Agnieszka Perche

2010

“Oltrarno” curated by Graziella Ardia, Palazzo Panciatichi, Florence