About the Work

In the mystical, theatrical paintings of Jonas Burgert, the figures move in front of a membrane of cultural symbols and archaic patterns that seem to come down to us from another dimension. 

Jonas Burgert personifies human psychology through figurative painting bordering on the grotesque. Astutely observing the minutiae of daily life, he bears witness to the entire range of human emotion. Loneliness, hatred, revenge, vanity and excess – a parade of human expressions feeds his imagination – giving form to the characters within his tableaux. There is a timeless sense of other dimensions and emotional undercurrents reflected in the ruptured layers of Burgert’s environments. Often breached by characters and architectural features, these tears in the pictorial plane reveal various levels existing simultaneously.

Burgert’s canvasses abound with rubble, detritus, remnants of history, cinders of the art of painting – the very cinders that serve to feed greed. However, they are of a fleeting nature. Their purpose is to devour the images and to unleash from the chaos the impulse and those emotions that linger in the memory.

About the Artist

Jonas Burgert (born in Berlin in 1959) is a Berlin based contemporary artist. He has shown work in many exhibitions including Rohkunstbau at Stipendiaten in Berlin, Geschichtenerzähler at Hamburg Kunsthalle and Dis-Positiv at Staatsbank in Berlin. Burgert has exhibited internationally at museums and galleries such as Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Beirut and Villa Manin, Passariano, Italy and was part of the Malerei Biennale in Stockholm in 2003. He is represented by Produzentengalerie in Hamburg BlainSouthern in London and Tang Contemporary Art in Hong Kong. He has also exhibited in Seattle, Mumbai, London and Denver. From January to April 2017 he exhibited his first solo show "Lotsucht. Scandagliodipendenza in Italy, at MAMbo in Bologna.