Information
About the Exhibition
Urban Spree Galerie presents "Second Wind", the second show of the L.A.-based visual artist Jonni Cheatwood with the gallery after "Tyger Tyger" in 2019.
The show will run in parallel with "The Weight of the World is Love" by the Finnish artist EGS.
"Tyger Tyger" belonged to a more abstract stream of paintings, inspired by "Figuration Narrative" and oscillating between figuration and whirlwind abstraction, with however the central theme of identity at the core of the language of the artist.
Jonni Cheatwood - Catch Me If You Can But With Bus Driver (2019) from the past exhibition Tyger Tyger at Urban Spree Galerie
"Second Wind" continues into Jonni Cheatwood's most recent cycle of paintings, which the artist started about 2 years ago. In this new cycle, Jonni cristallizes his characters into figurative shapes, incarnating them from their previous state of semi-abstraction (or "Big Bang") and bridging the distance to reality, unafraid of exploring his past, family portraits, reunions, and lost bloodlines. Nonetheless, the whirlwind and the tension have certainly not vanished. They still question the viewer: who am I? Are you watching me or yourself? Identity, mirrors, still life. Movement and stillness. Past and Present.
Jonni Cheatwood - “A Small Town with a Big Carpet” - courtesy from Makasiini Contemporary
And while Jonni has been lately painting large compositions of groups of characters, "Second Wind" refocuses the gaze on close-up single portraits, detaching the individual from the group where a certain anonymity prevails, to a close examination of the self.
The fabrics that Jonni sews into his canvases are here migrating to the periphery of the object; they are not integrated in the same way into the works - a material patchwork of fabrics hinting at a central identity quest - but it seems that the characters depicted in close range have somehow reclaimed their identity, find their way, and pushed the fabrics to the periphery of themselves. But for how long?
‘We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.’ (Shakespeare - The Tempest).
Jonni Cheatwood (b. 1986) is a Brazilian-American visual artist working across many different disciplines including painting, photography, graphic design and textile art.
https://www.instagram.com/jonni_cheatwood/
https://www.jonnicheatwood.com/
Jonni Cheatwood: Second Wind
12 May 2023 - 01 July 2023
Vernissage: 12 May 2023 / 18:00-22:00
Urban Spree Galerie
Revaler Str. 99
10245 Berlin
Info & Catalogue: pascal@urbanspree.com
