Galleria Duemila presents “SOS”, a solo exhibition of abstract works from interdisciplinary artist and Dean of iACADEMY’s School of Design and the Arts, Jon Cuyson.
The exhibition features paintings, collage, and videos that explore horizontality and abstraction. In the current context of chaos and anxiety, his works investigate and claim horizontality as a form of resistance to verticality. The artist builds layers of acrylic paint and marks on the canvas, repeating and revising in order to build densities on the surface resulting in an interplay of receding and advancing geometric abstract compositions. Similarly, the video included in the exhibition features horizontal bars with overlapping images of both dripping paint and hidden images of the sea. Consistent with his interest in the narrative of the sea, Jon Cuyson borrows the maritime code distress signal, SOS (Save Our Ship, Save Our Souls), as the exhibition title. It serves as a conceptual anchor in the paintings that reveal a restrained form of poetic urgency.
“While these paintings were created amidst a period of increasing uncertainty, I consider them to be proposals for contemplation. Much like the sea, these works are symbolic containers of my internal desires and fears, and can be viewed as sites for thinking and self-reflection.”, shares Jon Cuyson.
Jon Cuyson received his MFA from Columbia University in New York in 2010 and has exhibited locally and internationally, including the group exhibition Motions of This Kind in London in 2019. His works employ different techniques and media including texts, photographs, drawing, painting, artist books, sculpture, video, and installation. His artistic practice investigates the complex intersections of art, history, culture, and their relationship to Filipino diaspora, and identity.
SOS is open for viewing from May 7 to 31, 2022 at Galleria Duemila.
A guided tour may be accessed through this link: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/10098461/sos-save-our-ship-save-our-souls
For more information, visit https://galleriaduemila.com.
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