Quick-Sketch Aesthetic: Art by Jonathan Hertzel
Jonathan Hertzel is a painter and sculptor who works in a gestural, abstracted style. The artist’s works embrace a frenetic, quick-sketch aesthetic while suggesting all manner of figures and objects.
I really enjoy the recent paintings in Jonathan’s Inversions series -- the works here are reminiscent of early expressionist abstractions, using colour palettes that evoke wild bursts of energy and growth. The overall atmosphere of these paintings is sometimes organic, evoking florals and cellular processes, and sometimes takes on a more industrial edge. In any case, the artist’s use of highly visible brush marks and strong, dark line work draws the viewer’s eye across every corner of the canvas.
The artist’s bronze sculptures reflect a similar approach to image-making -- these pieces translate the notion of heavy, traceable brush marks into sculptures that carry the evidence of their making, in a way that hearkens to the abstract works of Rebecca Warren and other contemporary sculptors.
