CUT!
Sophie Gannon Gallery
11 Apr 2023 – 29 Apr 2023
Sophie Gannon Gallery is pleased to present CUT! by Jordy van den Nieuwendijk, the first Australian solo exhibition by the Dutch-born, Melbourne-based artist.
Using simplified forms and bold silhouettes, Jordy constructs minimalist compositions that hum with vitality and humour, rendering them in a full colour wheel of vivid and pastel hues.
The 19 oils on linen in this suite of work depict an array of objects, plants and animals. Notable for their pared-back pictorial design, some incorporate stripes and circles while others display repeating motifs such as white swans and a crescent moon.
Exploiting the tension between abstraction and representation – between the shock of the ‘nieuw’ and the familiarity of recognition – many of these paintings would seem to relate to the show’s action-word title.
Scissors, of course, cut. So do fencing foils. A large sausage has been cut into slices, in a tasty painting that also features round slices of salami falling like confetti. So far so good.
An electric vehicle? It cuts emissions. A bicycle? Ditto. A pair of dance shoes? Presumably their owner uses them to cut the rug. But what about the large painting of a leaping horse and a submarine meeting mid-air?
As it turns out, Jordy came up with the exhibition title after the paintings were finished, and he had a different kind of ‘Cut!’ in mind.
“Looking at everything I’d made, I began to think of myself as a director, and all the paintings as actors – and what does a director say?”
Speaking of films, Submarine-Horse was inspired by the rom-com classic Notting Hill, a background favourite for Jordy when he’s working in his studio.
“There is a line of dialogue between Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts that includes mention of a horse and a submarine,” he reveals.
“I had made some drawings of show-jumping horses leaping over colourful poles, and after hearing that line, something about the horse’s bum got me thinking about the shape of a submarine.”
In an even larger painting, Swan Lake, four white swans and an orange kayak with paddle battle it out for canvas space against a field of coloured rectangles.
Happy to play along, Jordy notes “a kayak cuts through water”, before adding: “I was working on the composition, with the ‘X’ of the kayak and its paddle, and I needed to fill up the empty space. All of a sudden, I thought of four white swans. And who doesn’t love a white swan?”
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, Jordy has held solo shows in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Düsseldorf, London and New York. He relocated to Melbourne in 2020.
- Tony Magnusson, 2023
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkCUT! 2023oil on linen40 x 30 cm$2,600.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkEV 2023oil on linen40 x 30 cm$2,600.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkSARDINES 2023oil on linen30 x 40 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkTINSHOT 2023oil on linen40 x 30 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkART INSTANT 2023oil on linen100 x 80 cm$5,000.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkBICYCLE 2023oil on linen100 x 80 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkBIRDHOUSE 2023oil on linen100 x 80 cm$5,000.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkDANCE SHOES 2023oil on linen100 x 80 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkDOUBLE HAT 2023oil on linen100 x 80 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkWOOD CLAMP 2023oil on linen100 x 80 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkSMOKE 2023oil on linen100 x 80 cm$5,000.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkHAMMER 2023oil on linen120 x 150 cm$9,000.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkEN GARDE 2023oil on linen150 x 120 cm$9,000.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkPOND PLANTS 2023oil on linen150 x 120 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkSAUSAGE 2023oil on linen150 x 120 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkSUBMARINE HORSE 2023oil on linen120 x 150 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkBIRD AT NIGHT 2023oil on linen200 x 170 cm●●
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkFLOWER IN RAIN 2023oil on linen200 x 170 cm$13,000.00
Jordy Van Den NieuwendijkSWAN LAKE 2023oil on linen170 x 200 cm$13,000.00
