Jack Sutherland is the third New Contemporaries alumnus to be offered an Elephant Lab residency
Paintings about the human condition. Frustrating, humorous, nihilistic, silly moments taking place within the theatre of the absurd. Explorations of bodily anxiety and trepidation are paired with fizzing and playful use of colour to create work that prods at the soft underbelly of the uncanny and grazes the softly stubbled cheek of contemporary masculinity.
Cartoonish bodily abstraction, wordplay, cropping as a compositional tool, and vulnerability are all given high precedence within the paintings, with scale being used to either intensify or undercut the imagery. Rarely is the full human figure depicted; the viewer is given a multiplicity of body parts across many paintings for them to assemble and disassemble the body as they so please. Myth and fiction play their role, but commonly shared experiences are the fundamental foundation for the work – a warped reflection caught in the bent mirror of a lift, faces glimpsed in peripheral vision during a late night walk, or the absurdity of a brain controlling a hand to paint a picture of a brain.
It is my brain and I will tell it what to believe and it will tell me what to tell it to believe.
www.jacksutherland.co.uk
