Born 1982 | Lives and works in Gaillac, France
Jordy Kerwick, a self-taught artist from Melbourne, creates expressionist works with vivid colors, patterns and mythical creatures. Kerwick quickly gained worldwide fame for his bold and unabashedly approach to color palettes and patterns, creating vibrant, expressionistic and highly stylized compositions. His paintings are full of an eclectic range of subjects, ranging from everyday objects to formidable predators and mythical creatures. Taxidermy carpets adorned with geometric motifs, two-headed royal cobras, ferocious crocs tigers and feathered unicorns populate his figurative works, weaving together a modern folklore that exudes miscegeness, dynamism and mysticism.
Although renowned for its diverse and living still life, Kerwick’s most recent work delves deeper into the fantasy realms of his inner imagination, where unexplored territories collide. He uses a wide range of materials including oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, as well as oil sticks and paper collages, adopting the philosophy that “the more mistakes, the crazier” who delights in the chance interaction of unexpected color combinations. textures and shapes.
Kerwick’s striking visual language is deeply rooted in his domestic and confined lifestyle. It mixes elements of art history with ancient iconography, mixing symbols of Egyptian art with bold and electrifying colors that recall the heroes and villains of comics. Beyond the captivating pictorial universes and the fantastic figurative characters that frequent his paintings, Kerwick meticulously considers gestural and abstract, creating compositions richly tactile, boldly vibrant and flattened. Its fresh and authentic lexicon of shapes and colours is inspired by the giants of abstract expressionism, minimalism and hard painting, paying tribute to artists like Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Agnes Martin and the timeless genius of Henri Matisse, whose influences permeate his creative impulse.
