Jordy Kerwick

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 Jordy Kerwick (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.

During the early years of his career Kerwick painted 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 and, in some cases, depict a female divinity.