“LIFE IN A BOX” – JOHN KORNER

“LIFE IN A BOX”.  JOHN KORNER – Danish Artist. VICTORIA MIRO GALLERY,  16 Wharf Road, London -N1,  until March 23, 2019.

John Korner from Arhus Denmark, born 1967, lives and works in Copenhagen and studied fine arts there between ‘92 and ‘98. He has exhibited in Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, and Italy, some shows more than once, and now has a stunning and thought provoking collection of artworks and installations at Victoria Miro Gallery 16 Wharf Road London N1 (nearest tube Angel) until March 23.  He has exhibited with this gallery, with two branches in London, more than once before.

John, who is a lot taller than 6 foot, calls his installations his “problems” and staff at the gallery all wear T shirts which say “problem” on them.  John is interested in lightness and darkness and is particularly fascinated by the use of yellow in his works especially since he saw a ‘pool of yellow’ once when he was concussed in a motorbike accident.  He often puts his canvasses on the floor and paints them there.  He rarely if ever puts faces on the characters he paints in his works.  He says his obsession with yellow also partly comes from the yellow and purple shirts he wore at his catholic school during games activities.

Korner’s conventional paintings are on the ground floor of Victoria Miro.  The first floor exhibits installations, a specially designed carpet,  and a bicycle conceptual art piece which can accommodate quite a number of people.   After choosing “problem” as the word to go on T shirts, Korner says problems are very positive, and many of them we create ourselves.  When trying to paint a figure on a horse, Korner found problems so created the figure of an egg  instead.  Not  being able to paint a human on a horse was a problem he likes.  A self portrait of himself that he has done resulted in him calling himself a long tall slim problem.

Korner thinks very few people really are free…so he boxes people in in his pictures. A painting of a man running away from the beach – with no clear face or head on him, is painted due to terrorism in a holiday resort overseas and is related to that.  He finds his paintings are stronger when obscuring the faces of his subjects.  This reminded me of Magritte but Korner said he is not strongly  influenced by any other artist.

The essence of speed enters some of his works.  We can never seem to keep up with the speed of life.  Korner also relates to people who seem lost in life.

Enjoy.

Penny Nair Price