Jack Gwyer is a visual artist working primarily with oil and wax on canvas. His practice reimagines the visual motifs of our material future, referencing themes of desire and societal pressure through the manipulation of texture and displacement of form. He has shown work across the UK since graduating from Goldsmiths in 2018.
Gwyer’s work frequently delves into the transitive and unstable elements of modernity. In his recent series, the layering of paint and repeated transfer techniques mirrors the ebb and flow of advanced commercial systems, where frameworks shift to avoid obsolescence, and language grows to emphasise the profitable while obscuring the unsustainable.
Each painting aims to gradually reshape the aesthetic palette of our material future away from its prosaic associations and towards new possibilities. In the formation of the final surface, figuration and abstraction appear and fade, with each added layer amplifying the oscillation between the familiar and the foreign, and each new hue muddying the waters between commerce’s memories and dreams.