john michael metelerkamp / artist portfolio · 2019-02-18 · john-michael metelerkamp / artist...

John-Michael Metelerkamp / ARTIST PORTFOLIO

ARTIST STATEMENT "My fascination with the human figure has resulted in it remaining, unsurprisingly, one of my cornerstone subjects. People and interpersonal relationships have been difficult for me as long as I can remember. Even in my more abstract paintings, there is still the energy of a physical presence. The process of creating my artworks is in itself very physical, drawing from my own grave and personal experiences and ultimately reflecting them onto the canvas as an extension of myself." My work is autobiographical in the context of my recovery from addiction and the journey to being a whole person and feeling complete once again. The act of Painting presents so many elements that stimulate and access various moods or energy. I embrace these said energies and don’t step back until I feel I have something worth observing. I don’t edit my thoughts, I allow my stream of consciousness to unfold freely and have often in the past, tried to find the most awkward colours that I feel work in harmony and further express who I am as a man and an artist.

GALLERY ADDRESS:

Berman Contemporary, 11 Alice Lane, Sandton, 2146,

Johannesburg, RSA

WEBSITE ADDRESS:

bermancontemporary.com

1 Berman Contemporary South African Art / John-Michael Metelerkamp- Artist Portfolio

EMAIL:

[email protected]

TEL:

010 880 2580

MOBILE:

+27 84 843 8302

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY John-Michael Metelerkamp was born in 1982 and is currently based in Knysna, South Africa. From an early age, he showed a talent for drawing, and it became a constant practice for him to draw on paper. He was also creating drawings throughout his difficulties with substance abuse but sadly would destroy most of the work. From his late teens and up until his early thirties he had great difficulty: emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Ultimately he was sent to a Neuro clinic resulting in the ensuing months seeing him on his brothers' couch in front of the TV. He was finally cast from the couch when his brother gave him an ultimatum out of sheer desperation. Paint John! So he did, and since late 2013 he hasn’t stopped. Website: bermancontemporary.com Social Media: Instagram: jahn_my_kul

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ARTIST RESUME Solo Exhibitions 2019 NEKKIES, Section: Tomorrows / Today - Investec Cape Town Art Fair (CTAF 2019), Berman Contemporary, Johannesburg 2018 The Immortal Nekkies, Turbine Art Fair 2018 (TAF18), Berman Contemporary, Johannesburg 2017 Gateway Series, Berman Contemporary, Johannesburg 2017 Metelerkamp - Keepers, Candice Berman Gallery, Johannesburg 2016 That Art Fair, Candice Berman Gallery, Cape Town Group Exhibitions 2017 Turbine Art Fair 2017 (TAF17), Candice Berman Gallery, Johannesburg 2016 Metelerkamp | Meyer | Canadas, Candice Berman Gallery, Johannesburg 2016 The Loop Art Gallery, Cape Town 2016 Transmutation, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna 2016 2.99, 99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town 2016 Look, The Eye, Cape Town 2015 JMM, Pop-up Gallery, Knysna 2015 1.99, 99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town 2015 A|No Magazine launch show, Studio 7, Atlanta 2015 Untitled, Luvey n Rose, Cape Town 2014 Untitled, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna Publications 2019 Transcendent Gestures by Andrew Lamprecht, Berman Contemporary Press, Cape Town, South Africa 2019 The Zen in Painting by Luko Witbooi, Berman Contemporary Press, Johannesburg, South Africa 2018 Neo-Expressionism in Africa – Metelerkamp and Selibe. Pioneering a new art movement in Contemporary South Africa by Ashraf Jamal, Berman Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa 2018 Immortal Nekkies by Amy Gibbings, Art Africa Magazine, June 2018 2018 The Neo-Expressionists, John-Michael Metelerkamp and Stompie Selibe by Ashraf Jamal, Creative Feel Magazine, June 2018 2018 Confronting the world’s agenda with acrylic, oil and cut-outs by Alien Growth, Art Africa Newsletter, April 2018 2017  John-Michael Metelerkamp by Cate Terblanche, Habitat Magazine, December 2017 2017 Get in your size by Mary Corrigall, The Times, September 2017 2017 Trust Pool | John-Michael Metelerkamp on Reality and the Subconscious, Art Africa Newsletter, May2017 2015 A|No Magazine launch show, Studio 7, Atlanta, USA (cover artist)

Berman Contemporary South African Art / John-Michael Metelerkamp- Artist Portfolio

Nekkies 22

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Nekkies 2019 Mixed-media on panel 90x90cm

Berman Contemporary South African Art / John-Michael Metelerkamp- Artist Portfolio

Nekkies, 2019 Mixed-media on panel 90x90cm

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Nekkies 18


Immortal Nekkies 2018 Mixed-media on panel 90x90cm

Nekkies 17

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Immortal Nekkies, 2018 Mixed-media on panel 90x90cm

Berman Contemporary South African Art / John-Michael Metelerkamp - Artist Portfolio

Nekkies 9

Detail


Immortal Nekkies, 2018 Mixed-media on panel 90x90cm

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Touchies

Gateway Series, 2017 Acrylic on Fabriano 92x133cm


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Gully



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Shallows




John-Michael Metelerkamp’s Keepers

by Lucinda Jolly

In the same way that humans have looked for patterns to aid their survival, so have art critics grouped artists under umbrella names. It’s as if to hedge some kind of order against impending chaos, to make the uncontainable containable.

If one were to make like a contemporary Ariadne and search the labyrinth of John-Michael Metelerkamp’s paintings for the single thread of a common denominator, it would surely be the painter’s eclectic nature—with influences from the masters to modern-day posts on Instagram, and the current street photographer, Joel Meyerowitz. There are other characteristics too. The constant shifting and exploration of the new, and of course, his prolific outpouring, often completing a painting in a day. Metelerkamp’s subject matter is mostly the female nude. He ascribes this to finding women more interesting to paint. “Females have a lot going on under the surface. Their story is more dramatic than men’s, I feel” he says. And Metelerkamp believes that “higher levels of emotion make for great storytelling material.”

A self-taught painter, Metelerkamp is not bound by the restrictions and notions held by the art world. Instead, he is free to create within the vastness of the beginner’s mind. His paintings demand an instinctual reading from the gut, heart and groin. The raw immediacy of the paintings is a far cry from the often cautious, cerebral approach. “I don’t think I trust my constructed thoughts,” he says.

The paintings appear as outcomes of an urgent drive to capture heightened emotional states. Metelerkamp’s modus operandi is suggestive of the German Expressionists who worked quickly to capture the peak of an emotional response before it burned itself out. In order to gain context and perspective of Metelerkamp’s body of work, Keepers, it might be useful to go back to the beginning. For all the edge-pushing evident in his paintings, Metelerkamp is unwilling to allow the risk inevitable in a spoken interview. He says he needs time to consider my questions and his answers, and opts rather for an email exchange.

Metelerkamp takes me back five years ago to his post-rehab days, when in a directionless space he spent a great deal of time on couch surfing TV channels. His filmmaker-photographer brother threw him a tough love lifeline in the form of an ultimatum. “Paint anything,” he commanded. And Metelerkamp took hold of this. And in so doing, he turned the destructive Thanatos into creative Eros. As it does for many artists, “painting provides a cathartic release” for Metelerkamp. The changes that painting fulltime have brought have made him “now excited with life. Curious about people and all that they encompass. I am getting on very well with all of my family. And I enjoy people’s company now, which is a huge change for me,” he says. Metelerkamp has “transmuted” his “tumultuous behaviour into” his “painting”.

Originally Metelerkamp sculptured, a medium which he says came very easily to him. Although painting and sculpture are very different mediums, he explains that it taught him about form and structure. But he let sculpture go in favour of painting, as he felt that he “wasn’t pushing, as far as concept goes”. Interestingly, at the time of our interview, he says he is in the process of returning to it.

In keeping with most of Metelerkamp’s work, the 11 acrylic paintings that make up Keepers started as a single painting and organically progressed into a series. Each painting comprises paired, voluptuous, naked females painted in a Picasso-esque style who dominate assorted landscapes (occasionally, a manmade environment) which are dotted about with tiny, seemingly less significant figures. Each of the women is depicted with dual faces.

Keepers is firmly positioned in the artist’s highly personal iconography. Although he is not concerned with the political, he is fascinated by human nature and the behaviour that drives it. He is naturally drawn to “the experience of those on the fringes of society”, and he likes to think that his work “is the antithesis of stereotype”. Metelerkamp says that he understands people, and explains that though he will always try to portray humans in a sympathetic manner, his way of painting and thinking puts a subversive spin on his interpretation.

Metelerkamp prefers the viewer to make up his or her own mind about the meaning of his paintings. Apart from Keepers’ emotional impact, there are some other inherent clues. The title holds the first one. For Metelerkamp it suggests a “guiding force”. He does, however, describe Keepers as “a battle of sorts; inner turmoil with a resounding longing and request for relief”.

Metelerkamp will be exhibiting the Keepers Series in August 2017 at Candice Berman Gallery, Johannesburg.

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Keepers 3

Keepers Series, 2017 Acrylic on Canvas 90x180cm


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Keepers 9

Keepers Series, 2017 Acrylic on Fabriano 130x200cm


Keepers Series, 2017 Acrylic on Fabriano 130x200cm

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Keepers 6


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Inescapable Bird Song

Inescapable Bird Song, 2016 Acrylic on Fabriano 170x160cm


Las 4

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Las 6

Las 1 Las 3

Las Series, 2012 Acrylic on Panel 90x90cm


GALLERY ADDRESS:

Berman Contemporary, 11 Alice Lane,

Sandton, 2146,

Johannesburg, RSA

WEBSITE ADDRESS:

bermancontemporary.com

EMAIL:

[email protected]

TEL:

010 880 2580

MOBILE:

+27 84 843 8302


Berman Contemporary is positioned as part of the new development in understanding the cultural richness and diversity of the Contemporary Art from South Africa as an aesthetic, evocative experience. The gallery’s work centres on a vibrant group of artists drawing from the extraordinary spirit of South Africa. During our studio visits, we meet artists from widely varied backgrounds, whose artistic process celebrate their enthralling historical and cultural heritage and voice their complex societal realities in South Africa, evoking an active and interpretative nature of the viewer’s experience of the works. Berman Contemporary was created to promote the artworks of these top-class artists and offer us, the observer, new experiences and intellectual nourishment. Berman Contemporary also strives to create synergies between artists from South Africa and their Contemporaries from various parts of the world. It is evident that international artists want to engage not only in the act of looking but to experience and familiarise themselves with the local trends within the art scene in South Africa and experiment with new contexts and audiences.

john michael metelerkamp / artist portfolio · 2019-02-18 · john-michael metelerkamp / artist...

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