I’m totally besotted with the large scale oil paintings by Netherlands based artist Joram Roukes. He’s a young, contemporary painter making a name for himself in the street-art scene.
image courtesy http:/www.roomsmagazine.com/index.php/2013/03/les-bons-sauvages-by-joram-roukes/
His works currently on show at The Stolen Space Gallery in Brick Lane, London appear to piece together a set of disparate characters – some masquerading as maybe one or two animals – captured in the aftermath of violence.
Imagery is fragmented, as if clipped from a magazine, a newspaper or literally called up from a memorable observation. This layering of contexts, both in technique and metaphor creates a highly charged narrative that is somewhat uncanny. We identify with the mundanity of depicted everyday situations from a couple sat on a sofa, yet feel alienated by the sardonic animal heads married with a human torso.
Image courtesy Stolen Space Gallery
This collage like way of assembling his subjects is reminiscent of street art; however the consideration paid to proportions allows for the surreal and realistic to coalesce, and the overall commentary isn’t didactic or mis-leading, but some how reflective of something you too have seen or remember, especially in the group scenes.
image courtesy http:/fourmefouryou.wordpress.com/tag/fourmefouryou-wordpress-com/page/15/
Portraiture is colurful and ripe with interpretation, but scratch underneath the comic overtures and something sinister is lurking. For this show, Roukes alludes to the binaries of nature, nurture and life and death in today’s society, and the varying manifestations of these opposing themes – often dark and looming.
‘Le Bons Sauvages’ is open until 14 April at the Stolen Space Gallery
