Piermarq
Sydney Contemporary 2019

PIERMARQ* is thrilled to present American artist Doug Argue and Australian artist Jordy Kerwick at Sydney Contemporary 2019.

Celebrated New York-based artist Doug Argue (b. 1962, Minnesota, USA) has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions internationally, spanning four decades. His works are held in major public, private, and corporate collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center, One World Trade Center, and the Weisman Art Museum. In the 2015 Venice Biennale the non-profit Save Venice Inc. presented Scattered Rhymes, a series of four monumental paintings by Argue.

One of Argue's most recent achievements is ‘Genesis’, a series of three large-scale paintings commissioned for the lobby of One World Trade Center.

At Sydney Contemporary, PIERMARQ* presents Doug Argue's 'Footfalls Echo In Memory', a visually and conceptually layered appropriation of Picasso’s iconic 'La Demoiselle D’Avignon'. This work is part of his ongoing 'Palimpsest' series. Originally referencing third century manuscripts that were overwritten by Christian monks several centuries later, a palimpsest is a piece of text on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing. Argue uses this concept as a metaphorical device to represent the universe in a constant state of flux, where the past, present and future overlap. The appropriation of recognizable imagery and literature are used as cultural and historical anchor-points, the contexts of which allow Argue to explore notions of quantum physics in a decidedly human manner.

“There are many different histories in the world, and we often see things in the current moment, yet have no idea what lies beneath. One language is always turning into another, one generation is always rising and another falling, there is no still moment. I am trying to express this flux-this constant shifting of one thing over another, like a veil over the moment itself.” -Doug Argue

In the last two years Jordy Kerwick (b. 1982, Australia) has exhibited in (to name a few) Paris, Copenhagen, London, Sydney, LA, Hamburg, New York, Tokyo & San Francisco. In February this year Kerwick moved to Albi, in Southern France, with his wife, artist Rachael McCully and their two young children.

Kerwick has in recent years amassed an obsessive international audience. His paintings are often an immediate response to this frenzy. By referencing the symbols and motifs of his favourite modern artists (Twombly, Motherwell, Frankenthaler) he comments on the sudden reverence for new artists in the age of Instagram.

For Sydney Contemporary Kerwick will further this investigation into arbitrary worship, creating a shrine to “The Painting”, complete with sacrificial items which will satirise the cliched accoutrement of the modern artist.

Kerwick is best known for his still life paintings that often feature graphic, naively-painted pot plants upon stacks of books, whose spines act as both compositional tools and as biographical references of cultural and personal significance.

Doug Argue Q&A:
September 13, 7:30pm
PIERMARQ* booth A13