Kent Iwemyr: Poetry From The Wilds

There is a poetic, eerie and often humorous sentiment in the work of Kent Iwemyr. In his open and sparse compositions the viewer is left lingering on the edge of understanding. The work takes its departure in Iwemyr’s local surroundings in the small Swedish town of Hallstahammer, where he was born in 1944 and still lives and works.

In twelve intimate tableaus, painted with acrylic on canvas, we are introduced to various seemingly mundane scenarios. Four stern looking men in hats carry a coffin through an expressionistic snowy landscape lit only by the moon on a pale blue Swedish sky in Another Sad Song, 2018, (38 x 46 cm). Where are they going with the coffin? They seem to be carrying it into nowhere through virgin snow. A strange procession that raises questions of foul play and tragedy.

Youngsters, some seemingly passed out around a table with beers, in metal and punk t-shirts, hang out in an official looking building in We Are The Punk Rockers, 2018, (38 x 46 cm). There is a feeling of breakup – people coming or going – something beginning or ending.

In There I Played As A Child, 2018, (38 x 46 cm), a small boy in a skull t-shirt looks directly at us, and so does all the other people in front of the grey low-rise apartment building, a painted snap shot, part reality, part memory, part fiction. Seemingly ordinary, but weirdly off. This is a reoccurring theme in Iwemyr’s work. Underneath the surface of normality there is a vast and wild ocean of humanness. In the wonderful semi-surreal painting Calling London, 2018, (33 x 41 cm), a man dressed in a trench coat, smoking a pipe, hands in pockets, has an expression of perplexed bewilderment. He is situated alone on a tiny island, behind him, a single slender pine tree and the classic red British telephone box, the island surrounded by sharks, we all know the feeling.

Kent Iwemyr’s painterly style is subliminal minimal. Two dots and two lines is a face filled with expression. His compositions balance on the verge of the naïve in the most positive sense of the term. Figurative gestures that transcends time and trends and taps into a common human consciousness. Iwemyr’s paintings trigger our curiosity and imagination. Poetry From The Wilds.

Kent Iwemyr’s recent exhibitions include It’s Not That Dammed Easy!, Galerie Claire Fontaine, Luxembourg (2017), The Painting Genius, Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Sweden (2016), The Painting Genius, Västerås Konstmuseum, Sweden (2016), Kent Iwemyr, Värmlands Museum, Sweden (2015), and The Painting Genius, Galerie Johen Hempel, Germany (2015). Poetry From The Wilds is Kent Iwemyr’s first solo exhibition with V1 Gallery.

Kilde: V1 Gallery