Zona Maco 2025

Jordy Kerwick (b. 1982, Melbourne, Australia) is a self-taught artist who began his painting career in 2016. Kerwick has quickly acquired global recognition for his bold, raw and unapologetic approach to palette and pattern, executing vivid, expressionistic and highly-stylised compositions.

Domestic objects, predatory animals, and mythical beasts – taxidermy rugs ornamented with geometric markings, double headed king cobras, ferocious fanged tigers, and feather-maned unicorns – populate his figurative canvases and create a contemporary folklore or fable that is playful, kinetic and arcane. Known for his colourful, eclectic still-life paintings, Kerwick’s latest body of work explores the fantastical elements and storied visions of the artist’s interior imagination where new and unknown terrains collide. Using a variety of materials, from oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, to oil stick and collage on paper, the artist’s “the more mistakes, the merrier” approach rejoices in the fortuitous relationships that arise between unexpected combinations of colour, texture, and form.

Kerwick’s striking visual language stems largely from his homebody, domestic lifestyle. Art historical references are entangled with ancient iconography. Symbols from Egyptian art combine with tropes from popular culture, such as the bold and electrifying color schemes of comic book series’ heroes and villains. Beyond the wondrous pictorial worlds and fantastical figurative characters that repeatedly populate the artist’s canvases, Kerwick carefully considers the gestural and the abstract in his nuanced construction of richly tactile, courageously vibrant, and flattened compositions. His fresh, authentic lexicon of shapes and colour absorbs influence from the heavy-weight hitters of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Hard-edge painting, citing Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Agnes Martin, and the modern genius of Henri Matisse as artists who infiltrate his visual impulse.

Recent solo exhibitions include Allouche Benais Gallery, Athens, Greece (2021); Galerie Julie Cadet, Paris, France (2021); Union Gallery, London, England (2021); Pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, California (2021, 2019); Piermarq*, Sydney, Australia (2020, 2018); Anna Zorina Gallery, New York (2019); a dual show at Masahiro Maki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan and Paris, France (2019); TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia (2019); and Delphian Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2018).

Kerwick lives and works in Albi, France.

Kevin Francis Gray was born in Northern Ireland in 1972. He currently lives and works between London and Pietrasanta.

Kevin Francis Gray has generated bodies of work which address the complex relationship between abstraction and figuration. At the core of the artist’s practice is an interrogation of the intersection of traditional sculptural techniques and contemporary life. Rather than working towards ideals of beauty or memorial, Gray attends to the psychological effects, often relying on textural surfaces rather than facial or bodily expressions. Furthering Gray’s decade of working with marble, his new work pushes the possibilities of the artist’s sculptural practice into new territories of physical and psychological expression.

He received his BA from the National College of Art & Design in Dublin (1995) and the School of Art Institute in Chicago (1996), and then went on to earn an MA in Fine Art from the Goldsmiths College in London. He works closely with the Giannoni marble studio in Pietrasanta, renowned for its use of sculpting techniques that date back to Canova and Michelangelo. His works have been included in exhibitions at the Royal Academy, London, UK; Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, UK; Museum of Contemporary Art of the Val de-Marne, Paris, France; Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam; Palazzo Arti Napoli, Naples, Italy; Musee d’art Moderne, Saint-Etienne, France; ARTIUM, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel; and Art Space, New York, USA.

Chris Soal was born in 1994 in South Africa is an award-winning, emerging artist. Living and working between Johannesburg and Cape Town. In 2017, Soal graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts (Hons) at the University of Witwatersrand. He has received numerous awards.

Soal’s work examines structural impacts on urban living, reflects on the individual in relation to the collective, and foregrounds ecological concerns. Soal’s spatial approach to sculpture reveals a sensitivity to texture, light, and form, expressed in an abstract minimalist language. While, conceptually, his works refer to the socio- political context of their making, highlighting the histories embedded in the found material, and utilizing them in a way that challenges societal assumptions of value.

He has exhibited in group shows at institutions such as the Nirox Sculpture Park (2021); Iziko South African National Museum, (2020); FRAC MECA, Bordeaux, (2019); Stellenbosch University Museum (2018), and Wits Art Museum (2017). Soal was selected as one of ten contemporary artists to participate in redesigning three handbags as part of the 5th edition of the Dior Lady Art project.

Recent solo exhibitions include Soal’s solo booth at Art Brussels (2022) and As below so above, in 2021, both with WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery.

Erik Schmidt is a German painter and polyhedric artist based in Berlin.
Born in Herford in 1968, at the age of 21 he moves to Hamburg, where he begins to explore illustration, painting and the nightlife scene, combining them into a subversive creative output.
It is when he moves to Berlin to assist visual artist Piotr Nathan — after graduating from the Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg — that he develops a more complex artistic language. Within a few years Erik begins to make a name for himself worldwide and is represented by galleries such as the current Carlier Gebauer and Krinzinger.
From this period (2001 – 2004) are some of the works shown in the exhibition curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto at SECCI Firenze, such as the Berlin urban views that somehow echo Pointillism and the video “Parking” shot by Stephanie Kloss.
These ones set the grounds for understanding how his body of work has morphed over two decades. In fact, the main part of the exhibition features a selection from his most recent pictorial series, in which the canvases are printed with photographs of places he visits and people he meets, then overpainted with thick impasto brushstrokes: Palm Bombs (2022 – 2023), based on large-scale bottom up views of palm trees from Sri Lanka, as well as urban scenes from New York City (2023), that include voyeur-like portraits of people passing by the streets and a cityscape.
The exhibition perfectly embodies how Erik Schmidt’s style has evolved to a new level and is on view from 16th September to 4th November in SECCI Gallery.

Francisco Domingos da Silva, known as Chico da Silva, was born in Alto Tejo, in the Brazilian state of Acre, the son of a Peruvian Indian and a woman from the state of Ceará. The year of his birth, based on research from different sources, is inconclusive, but it is estimated that the artist was born in 1910 (Fundação Bienal de São Paulo) or 1922 (Catalog of his first solo show in Fortaleza, 1961; Estrigas, 1988). Chico da Silva, from a very young age, traveled throughout the north and northeast of Brazil before settling in Fortaleza, Ceará.

In the early 1940s, he began drawing with charcoal and chalk on the walls of the cottages in Praia Formosa [Formosa Beach]. In 1943, Chico met the Swiss painter Jean-Pierre Chabloz (1910-1984), who introduced him to the local art circuit. In the same year, he participated in the collective exhibition Salão de Abril [April Saloon], followed by the 3rd Salão Cearense de Belas Artes, in 1944. Barboza Leite, referring to Chico’s early production in his book “Esquema da Pintura no Ceará [Painting Scheme in Ceará]”(1949), described it as follows “[…] the imprecise, nebulous forms, but dosed with a poetic intensity to the whole surface, of F. Silva’s paintings”.

In 1945, Chabloz exhibited paintings by Chico da Silva alongside Antonio Bandeira (1922-1967) and Inimá de Paula (1918-1999) at Galeria Askanasy in Rio de Janeiro. Over the next three years, the Swiss artist made occasional trips to Europe, returning to the continent permanently in 1948. Chabloz dedicated himself to promoting Chico’s work, staging his first solo show at the Galerie Pour L’Art, Lausanne, in 1952. In December of the same year, he published the article “Un Indien brésilien ré-invente la Peinture [A Brazilian Indian reinvents painting]” in the prestigious art magazine Cahiers D’Art, managed by Christian Zervos.

The departure of his friend and mentor had a great impact on Chico da Silva’s production, and during Chabloz’s stay in Europe, he held a small number of exhibitions in Brazil. Continuing his representation abroad, he participated in 1956 in the exhibition Arts primitifs et modernes brésiliens at the Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The beginning of the 1960s marked Chabloz’s return to Brazil for a short period – the Swiss returned to Europe in July 1960, where he stayed for two years – which facilitated Chico’s reintegration into the group of artists from Fortaleza.

On April 10th, 1961, Chico da Silva opened his first solo show in Brazil, which took place at the Sede dos Diários Associados, in Fortaleza, where he presented ten works. According to the text of the catalog presented by the then Governor Parsifal Barroso, his “mysterious stories of the jungles, where animals and accidents of nature interfere as if they were human creatures […] represent the best phase of the painter, especially for the coloring, imagination, and movement of the themes”.

In 1959, Chico da Silva was hired by UFC – The Federal University of Ceará to develop the activities of MAUC – Art Museum of the Federal University of Ceará. His participation at the University lasted until 1963, when he exhibited at Galeria Relevo, in Rio de Janeiro, through the intermediation of Jean Boghici (1928-2015). In the same year, he approached Henrique Bluhm, who began the process of commercializing his work. It was during this period that Chico da Silva established his image as the Mestre da Escola do Pirambu [Master of the Pirambu School], working closely with young artists interested in learning the craft of painting. In 1965, he participated in the exhibition 8 peintres naïfs brèsiliens at Galerie Jacques Massol in Paris.

In 1966, through the efforts of Clarival do Prado Valadares, owner of Galeria Goeldi, Chico was included in the delegation that represented Brazil at the 33rd Venice Biennale, where he received an Honorable Mention. In the exhibition catalog, his work is described based on a meticulous technique that “whether in detail or in color, brings together a sophistication of the physical and subjective medium of painting”. In a letter written to Haroldo Juaçaba, Clarival described the Venice experience as follows: “I fought hard for Chico. After seeing the four paintings (panels) exhibited, Jacques Lanaipre came to me secretly and asked me to show to five members of the jury the works by Chico that were not exhibited: exactly those twelve gouaches from the Art Museum of the Federal University of Ceará. It was a revelation. They said that if Brazil had made a room for the Indian, the result would be different”.

The late 1960s are marked by episodes in which different apprentices claimed authorship of his works, causing Chico da Silva’s mental and physical health to deteriorate. In 1972, he was included in the show Arte/Brasil/Hoje: 50 Anos Depois, at the Collectio Gallery, in São Paulo, followed by his participation in the 1st Latin American Biennial of São Paulo, at the Fundação Bienal, in 1978. In the last phase of his career, Chico continued to hold solo and group exhibitions in different Brazilian states, including Recife, Brasília, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro.

In 1983, due to thrombosis, his health was completely debilitated. Chico da Silva died in Fortaleza in 1985. Since his death, he is considered a “primitivist genius” in Brazil, and his work fuses popular cosmologies from the north and northeast of the country. His concern with the exaltation of Brazilian fauna and flora is evident not only as a decorative element but as a formal expression of the organic subjectivity of the Amazon region and its complexities.