Dutch pop artist Nemo Jantzen’s hyper-realistic Neo-pointillist works pack the wow factor. Over two decades in the business, he has specialized in conjuring up instantly recognisable portraits of Hollywood stars and supermodels in his signature style.
So we’re pumped to check out his new solo exhibition at Darlinghurst’s M Contemporary during Art Month. Jantzen is a fitting heir to epochal ‘80s commercial artist Patrick Nagel. But instead of reducing his subjects to the most minimalist collection of lines and shadings as Nagel did, Jantzen complicates them, rendering dazzling mosaics of tiny images suspended in glass and acrylic balls. From certain angles and form up close and personal, the work is unrecognisable. Look from a distance, however, or through the lens of a phone camera, and the buzzy noise makes way for the signal. It all becomes crystal clear.
“In my new body of work I go beyond telling a one-image story, depicting a voyeuristic look into another world and reality,” Jantzen says. “With large-scale images built up out of hundreds of small images, and stories encapsulated in glass spheres, the work simply keeps repeating to the viewers ‘The closer you look, the less you see’.”
So go see it – from a distance – at M Contemporary, where it’s showing from March 4-14.
