Anna Zorina Gallery is pleased to present the dual exhibition of Anastasia Bay + Jordy Kerwick.
For her first exhibition in the United States, Anastasia Bay explores the localized phenomenon of American football with paintings that depict players frozen within dynamic moments of the game. The artist’s approach to creating these works shares a similar performance method to that of an athlete. Her large-scale paintings engage the whole body in broad movements, as she repeats sequences of gestures, like rerunning plays on the field. Bay repeatedly tests the outcomes and reactions while also forming a muscle memory for her creative method. The canvas bares witness to a history of her mark-making layered in thin, transparent washes which distills into one delicate moment of freeze frame. Each figure reverberates within opaque color blocked spaces. From the firm resoluteness of this arena with its specific rules of play and laws of physics, emerge moments of beauty and excellence.
Self-taught painter Jordy Kerwick presents a primal realm that fuses his raw style and vivid color palette with chimeric iconography to craft his own unique brand of contemporary folklore. His paintings are populated with mythical predatory beasts such as double-headed cobras and tigers, feather-maned unicorns; ferocious beasts seen coexisting playfully in a bright dreamlike land. His intuitive application of oil, acrylic and spray paint on to the canvases creates a tactility that brings each scene to life.
ANASTASIA BAY (b. 1988, Paris, France) lives and works in Brussels. She studied fine art in Paris under François Boisrond at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Using bold shapes and line she explores figurative painting, deploying themes from the classical canon; nudes and still lifes. She's co-founder of the Brussels exhibitions platform: Clovis XV. Recent exhibitions include solos at Galerie Derouillon, Paris, France; Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels, Belgium and G/ART/EN in Como, Italy. She has shown extensively in international group shows at Villa Schöningen, Potsdam, Germany; White House Gallery, Lovenjoel, Belgium; Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, Belgium; Spurs Gallery, Beijing, China and NEVVEN, Göteborg, Sweden.
JORDY KERWICK (b. 1982, Melbourne, Australia) is a self-taught artist living and working in Albi France. Having started painting in 2016, Kerwick is rapidly gaining recognition on the international art stage with recent solo exhibitions at Vito Schnabel Gallery; Galerie Julien Cadet, Montpellier, France; Allouche Benias Gallery, Athens, Greece; Pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, California; and a dual show Fatal Purity at Masahiro Maki Gallery in both Paris and Tokyo. He is currently featured in a group show This Must Be The Place at Villa Schöningen, in Potsdam, Germany.
For further information, please contact Marie Nyquist at 212-243-2100 or via email at marie@annazorinagallery.com