Magnus Gjoen brings classical art up to speed with contemporary touches
- 02 Sep 2024
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
Mestaria Gallery has announced its upcoming exhibition “The Future of The Past,” featuring artworks from contemporary artist, Magnus Gjoen (Sept. 26 – Oct. 16). It invites visitors to explore the delicate balance between history and modernity, as envisioned through Gjoen’s artistic lens.
Gjoen, a London-born artist with Norwegian roots, has developed an individual style that fuses street art influences with pop culture and fine art techniques. His work reimagines symbols and themes from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, offering a perspective that challenges traditional views on beauty. He would like to breathe fresh air into dusty old paintings found in the far corners of a museum or lend a sense of beauty and grace to typically powerful, even dangerous, objects.
His art encourages viewers to find beauty in unexpected places; he often transforms familiar imagery into something totally new. After studying fine art and fashion design, he honed his creative vision during a successful career with Vivienne Westwood, where his exposure to fashion fuelled his desire to further push artistic boundaries. The blend of influences eventually led him to dedicate himself fully to contemporary art: he continues his innovative infusion there.
“The Future of The Past” showcases Gjoen’s visionary approach to art, exploring the connections between traditional and contemporary styles. His work juxtaposes contrasting elements, merging classical pieces with futuristic aesthetics, creating a dialogue across different eras. In the Mestaria exhibition, he highlights his ability to reinterpret traditional motifs through a contemporary lens, offering viewers a look at familiar themes, transformed into something quite new. His pieces reflect on the evolving relationship of time and perception.
Among his works, “You and I Are Earth” is perhaps a stand out, inspired by the idea of the heart expanding beyond its constraints, symbolising growth and emotional depth. Another piece, “The Morning After The Night Before,” modernises old scenes by integrating contemporary elements, creating surprisingly unexpected contrasts between stillness and life.
Born in London to Norwegian parents, Gjoen grew up across Europe, living in Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, and the UK. A contemporary art maker, his art offers a modern spin on historical masterpieces, manipulating strong, often destructive objects into fragile, beautiful forms. “Magnus Gjoen’s macabre, highly stylised figurative works combine elements of Baroque painting and Byzantine fresco with contemporary touches,” notes Artsy, the world’s largest online art marketplace.
Gjoen describes himself as an “accidental” artist, since he only came to art when decorating the walls of his flat. Combining wit and elegance, his style is popular with private and public clients alike, with commissions ranging from musicians to publishers, from The Wallace Collection to hotels across the US. His collectors include Kate Moss, Kylie Jenner, Graham Norton, Haifa Museum of Art and Daimler collection. He has collaborated with renowned porcelain manufacturer, Meissen.
Robert Indiana, Polly Morgan and Michael Craig-Martin are three of Gjoen’s favourite artists. The three bios following are courtesy Wikipedia. Indiana was an American artist associated with the pop art movement. His complex and multilayered work explores the power of language, American identity, and personal history, and often consists of striking, simple and direct words.
Michael Craig-Martin (b. 1941) is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his pioneering conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. It is considered a seminal piece; he exhibited it in 1973. The work consists of a glass of water standing on a shelf attached to the gallery wall, next to which is a text explaining why it is, in fact, an oak tree. On one occasion, it was barred by Australian Customs officials from entering the country as vegetation: the artist was forced to explain it was really a glass of water.
The work was bought by the National Gallery of Australia in 1977, and the Tate gallery has an artist’s copy. Mestaria Gallery, says its autobiography, “is a contemporary, affordable, non-intimidating art space located in the heart of the dynamic Alserkal Avenue Art District in Al Quoz, Dubai, UAE.” It was first established as a gallery space in the UAE in the 1990s; it can now be said to be one of the region’s foremost contemporary art spaces, specialising in works from accomplished regional and global talent, with a specific focus on work of Arabic, African and Asian origins.