4 September- 9 Oktober, 2004

JonMarc Edwards makes both figurative and abstract works, most of them paintings, but also sculptures and recently, a return to installations.

You may think of him as a dualistic person, in whom extravagancy and restraint compete, as if he were struggling with a reserved conceptual approach to his work and the desire to just go about it and paint. But, his interest is multi-fold; he reflects on images from the environment, or mingles text and cinema-related subjects in his paintings. Sometimes these texts take on a life of their own as when he does script writing, or directs “in-studio” movies.

In his paintings he often transforms words into images, leaving the literal meaning in existence, yet creating associations with different languages or writing. Words become shapes, strange signs with a humorous, or a painterly touch. A very poetic body of work is the translation of the word ‘light’ into different languages. Concretely cut out in metal, and painted white, they’re almost invisible like light, yet appearing when lit, casting a shadow.

In 2004, Edwards returned to making installations. First at Carl Berg Gallery in Los Angeles where he filled an entire gallery space with objects from his youth, combining them with recent paintings, either hanging from the wall, or presented in Plexiglas storage boxes piled on top of each other. Tokens from a lifetime, compressed in boxes, yet visible by the transparency of the material.

A few months later in Amsterdam, he designed a bar inhabited by a hundred colorful bottles bearing his labels. As an object in space, this bar conveyed a cheerful visual experience, fit for custom-made interiors. However, when studying every individual bottle, one could discover the various layers of meaning; comments, text images, or like before, images from his youth, as well as his latest paintings, which to some extent could also be found separately exhibited.