14 Surreal Paintings By Jeremy Geddes Of Distopian Worlds
Melbourne-based artist, Jeremy Geddes has made a comeback with his first solo exhibiion after a ten year hiatus. His new series, Periphery, is a jarring experience that stems from paintings and drawings curated over half a decade. The concept revolves around themes of alienation, technology, and ephemerality. Cosmonauts appear to float and fall, vehicles hang suspended in the air, meanwhile buildings appear to disintegrate as space shuttles and debris rain down on the world in these intense portrayals.
The collection boasts a variety of layered canvases, graphite drawings and oil on board paintings that are strikingly thought-provoking. Geddes admits that his latest works are the results of a “slow production rate,” and his main focus was to find a series that, “would hold together reasonably well when collected in one space. Over the past five years I had different interests that drew me in one direction or another, but they remained grouped within a fairly tight conceptual sphere, so there was a natural cohesion that happily emerged.”
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#1 “Deluge” (2024), oil on board, 35.4 x 35.4 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#2 “Threshold” (2023-24), graphite on paper, 19.2 x 19.2 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#3 “Babel” (2019-2021), oil on board, 15 x 21.5 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#4 “Edifice” (2021-22), oil on board, 24.5 x 32.5 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#5 “Gnosis” (2023), graphite on paper, 11.8 x 23.6 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
“Foremost in my mind when I’m planning out a new piece is catching that ephemeral emotional note, isolating it and making it hopefully more present in the work,” Geddes claims. “It’s always a difficult aspect for me to pinpoint and an even more tricky task to make other people feel the same emotions that you intended the work to convey.”
#6 “Signal” (2023-24), oil on board, 19.6 x 39.3 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#7 “Follow Study” (2024), oil on board, 13 x 13.5 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#8 “Talisman,” oil on board, 6.75 x 13 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#9 “Monument” (2021-22), oil on board, 33.4 x 29.5 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#10 “Tower” (2022), graphite on paper, 11 x 14.3 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
“Each piece is an attempt to communicate something slightly oblique and non-verbal, and that’s always a fraught task with a fairly low success rate,” Geddes remarks. “If even just one work from [Periphery] can strike that emotional note in the viewer, then I’m happy.”
#11 “Corrosion” (2022-23), oil on board, 18 x 18 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#12 “Trajectory” (2024), graphite on paper, 19.2 x 19.2 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#13 “Fury 19” (2022-23), oil on board, 18 x 18 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
#14 “Interstice” (2020), graphite on paper, 21 x 21.2 in.
Image Source: JeremyGeddes
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