New Work

Jón Óskar is a painter of large format and size has always been an inseparable part of his means of expression. Quantity is also characteristic of his routine considering his priority as an artist working with series rather than single limited works. The need to display a continuous process causes one work to lead to another without a sharp break between supports. This kind of approach requires that the spectator get an insight into the continuity and perceive it as a temporal rather a spatial unfolding. Single work only tell half of the story, as much as clip from an unbroken symphonic strophe.

The prime element in Jón Óskar's art has always been drawing in its simplest, yet complex form. In this respect he is related to Kjarval, who regularly drew with a stiff oil brush and often painted by reversing the brush and scratched the wet paint with the tip of the shaft. The result is frequently graphical, patterned and based on a methodology, which can be traced to late 19th century symbolism, with the fusion of cartooning and illustration, together with all the printing features, which the Victorian era made accessible to the broad public. The exhibited works are massive and tiny, and various intermediary sizes.