Current exhibitions Jordi Isern
JORDI ISERN
MEMORY
Memory of my body. Memory of the abyss. Memory of Everything
The work of Jordi Isern can be described as the need to know beyond what our senses allow. It draws us in, disturbs us, and awakens an echo within us, as if we ourselves had traces of a prior knowledge within us that feel familiar. The three sections of this installation provide a window into the artist’s thought process and personal experience. In the first room, the set of faces and bodies represent Memòria del meu cos [Memory of my body]; in the second, the five painted beds evoke the Memòria de l’abisme [Memory of the abyss]; finally, in the third space, Memòria del Tot [Memory of Everything], we find the scrap of shroud in which he suggests the Absolute. Whether it is flat or three-dimensional, if we let it act within us, it ends up forming part of us, as viewers, invited to become an actor in this scenario. Jordi Isern is an artist aware of his footsteps and approach to transcendence, allowing the limits of knowledge to fade away and being able to perceive the final vision of the Absolute.
Jordi Isern (Barcelona, 1962) has based his artistic work in recent years on the reflection on the look of painting. How he and the public see it, and how the painting looks at us. The artist is concerned with generating a perceptive and transcendent climate for the viewer, and his exhibitions-scenarios aim to generate spaces where the work can be breathed deeply. This is also the purpose of this show at the Museum of Montserrat. Isern seeks a meditative experience, a reflective space about the meaning of human existence, evoking one's own body, fears and longings. “I paint to reconstruct I do not know what exactly, but I feel like a tracker, like an archaeologist who investigates, who looks for tracks, marks, clues of not evident dimensions in the simplest, everyday things, in the inevitable transit of bodies and things”, he says.
Jordi Isern lives in Sant Iscle d’Empordà (Girona, Catalonia). He has a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. He obtained the grants of Plastic Arts of the Generalitat of Catalonia (1985) and the painting one of the Fundació Güell (1986). Among others, he has been awarded the 1st Honda Painting Prize (2007) and the 1st Painting Prize of the Vila Casas Foundation (2010). In recent years he has developed the Origin project at the Museu de la Garrotxa in Olot and in various areas of Girona. He has also participated in the Travelling Exhibitions of the Diputació de Girona.
J. Corredor-Matheos, exhibition curator
Vídeo Jordi Isern