Jordy Kerwick | From 22 September 2023 to 15 January 2024

The exhibition programme devoted to the Blanca and Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection is focusing this season on an emerging figure in new painting, the Australian artist #jordykerwick (born Melbourne, 1982). On display are 9 works, ranging from large-format canvases to smaller creations on paper and including three paintings from this collection.

Jordy Kerwick, Jules y sus amigos

Jordy Kerwick. Jules and his Friends, 2022. Collection Blanca y Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza. Courtesy the artist and cadet capela

A completely self-taught artist, Kerwick began to paint only seven years ago, encouraged by his wife Ces McCully who is a trained artist. Before turning to art Kerwick was the owner of a small business specialising in sports projects but its initiatives largely failed and almost led to bankruptcy. He is now an extremely successful artist, represented in the #museo Nacional Centro de #arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and in other art museums in the US and Japan. Kerwick has exhibited his work in cities such as Paris, London, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney.

Jordy Kerwick belongs to a new generation of artists who have made use of the social media to disseminate their work. Living in Albi, France, since 2019 it is from there that he has built up a wider following and has established contacts with other artists and galleries world-wide. In 2016 he made his first sale via Instagram and in 2022 his works first appeared at auctions in London and New York.

Jordy Kerwick, Este amor moderno

Jordy Kerwick. This Modern Love, 2023. Collection Blanca y Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza. Courtesy the artista and Vito Schnabel

Kerwick’s earliest paintings were still lifes. Initially characterised by muted tones, they became increasingly colourful with a wider range of details. These interior scenes then started to include a camouflaged cobra and a tiger; fantastical creatures which subsequently moved outdoors, into jungle landscapes inhabited by lions and wolves but also by unicorns, the majority with two heads. Kerwick’s most recent paintings are more complex, narrative compositions that evoke an entire mythology, in some cases centred on a presiding female divinity.

The works in the present exhibition are all from the artist’s most recent period, created between 2022 and 2023. These colourful, vibrant compositions employ a wide range of techniques applied in different layers: spray paint, acrylic and oil for the canvases and felt tip pen and oil pastel for the works on paper. Two of them, This Modern Love (2023) and The Muse (2023), also reveal the artist’s sources of inspiration and his references through the books included among the decorative elements: Cretan art, Fauvism and Henri Matisse.

Jordy Kerwick, Antes/después

Jordy Kerwick. Before/After (2023). Vito Schnabel Gallery

A number of paintings depict a ritual scene centred on a female divinity. A winged crocodile and a woman wait on a two-headed reclining goddess in the canvas Two Deep (2023), while a fierce hooded figure lurks among the trees. In the foreground, two women and a wolf in a patterned dress complete the composition, which includes textiles, vases, trees and plants.

The two-headed goddess reappears in Jules and his Friends (2022), here wearing a large crown of rays of light with a dragon between her legs and facing a similarly two-headed cobra. Rain falls on a horned tiger with long claws, all set in a landscape with a rainbow.

Jordy Kerwick, La musa

Jordy Kerwick. The Muse (2023). Vito Schnabel Gallery

In The Muse the goddess is located in the centre of the painting, kneeling and wearing high heels, with one hand in the form of a cobra. At her feet two small figures worship her, set among vases and other vessels, carpets and plant elements. In This Modern Love the female figure has become a lamp stand, located on a table alongside a wolf’s head. The setting is a room decorated with flowers, plants and textiles in which we also see a bookcase with books and other objects, a feathered mask and a painting of an exotic bird.

The still-life Before/After (2023) looks back to the artist’s earliest works. It depicts a large vase of flowers, two cigarettes and an ashtray with butts. Also on display are two works on paper from the series Untitled (2023) and the canvases Trying to catch a heart (2023) and Untitled (2022).