Kenneth Blom “Recent Works”
Jason McCoy, Inc. (Midtown)
This event has ended.
New paintings by the Norwegian artist Kenneth Blom.
Blom’s compositions are characterized by the depiction of solitary figures in industrial landscapes. Here, man and setting are entangled in a relationship that is both tense and mysterious; they inhabit independent worlds and remain separated by tangential planes. These vast empty spaces, which are rendered in broad brushstrokes, emphasize a psychologically charged context reminiscent of the work of Edvard Munch, for example.
For his first solo exhibition with the gallery, Blom drew inspiration from Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The complexities of the human psyche conveyed by human relationships are emblematic themes of Ibsen’s plays, and they are tangible forces in Blom’s new body of work. The figures in his paintings are depicted mid-movement, as if taken from photographs, with intensity in their stature and direction that suggests a desire and ambition to interact with each other. Yet, the faces of these figures are blurred, and their glances seldom meet. They are persons once restricted and composed. Blom observes this dichotomy as essential to his theme: “their absence becomes more intrusive than their presence. The experience of being disconnected from each other but also from oneself is the essence of these pictures.”
Born in 1967 in Roskilde, Denmark, Kenneth Blom moved to Norway as a child. He studied at the Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo (1990-1994), as well as at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts (1994-1995). He has shown extensively in Europe, including as a featured artist at Sotheby’s New Bond Street in London, at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Norway, and regularly at Galeri Haaken in Oslo. He is the subject of the forthcoming documentary Forventninger/Anticipation by filmmaker Tommy Normann. Blom lives and works in Oslo.
[Image: Kenneth Blom “Nora” (2013) oil on canvas 55 x 63 in.]
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Schedule
from January 15, 2014 to February 28, 2014