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    Abstract Shapes Build Jason Boyd Kinsella’s Expressive and Unique Characters

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    “Chris” (2025), oil on canvas, 189 x 159 centimeters. All images courtesy of Jason Boyd Kinsella and Perrotin, shared with permission

    Abstract Shapes Build Jason Boyd Kinsella’s Expressive and Unique Characters

    September 26, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    Jason Boyd Kinsella refers to himself as “a collector of things at heart.” The manner in which the Toronto-born, Oslo-based artist (previously) assembles shapes and colors appears to emerge from this lineage, his impeccable ability to capture a particular human emotion through abstract forms on full display.

    Alchemy of the Eternal Self is Kinsella’s most recent body of work and continues his bold portraiture focused on the building blocks of our inner lives. Standing several feet tall, the geometric figures loom larger than most viewers, their bold personalities inviting an encounter.

    “Luna” (2025), oil on canvas, 104 x 124 centimeters

    Kinsella zooms out in some of the pieces in the series, including “Luna” and its titular hunched character. With a sleek, white bob and perpetual frown, the figure’s long fingers reach for the ground as she turns to look out of frame. Exploring body language in addition to facial expressions, the artist also turns to art history, drawing the woman’s bent posture from Jean-François Millet’s “The Gleaners.” The large-scale painting, completed in 1857, garnered sympathy for the lowest classes and showed their essential labor.

    In this way, Kinsella puzzles together both the timely and enduring, prompting connections through his Cubist paintings in which pure feeling and expression show that no matter how different we appear, we’re all made of the same emotional DNA.

    Alchemy of the Eternal Self is on view through October 24 at Perrotin in Shanghai. Keep up with Kinsella’s work on his website and Instagram.

    “Graham” (2025), oil on canvas, 109 x 89 centimeters

    “Helen” (2025), oil on canvas, 159 x 134 centimeters

    “Freddy” (2025), oil on canvas, 184 x 184 centimeters

    “Paula” (2025), oil on canvas, 189 x 159 centimeters

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      Cubist Figures Wade into the Shadowy Depths of Connor Addison’s Allegories

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      “In the Loving Care of Animal Spirits” (2022), oil and acrylic on linen, 200 x 300 centimeters. All images © Connor Addison, shared with permission

      Cubist Figures Wade into the Shadowy Depths of Connor Addison’s Allegories

      September 6, 2024

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      With light inevitably comes darkness, a dualism Barcelona-based artist Connor Addison (previously) finds endlessly intriguing. “We so often forget to embrace the shadow as it’s presumed unloveable or is invisible,” he says.

      Addison pulls at what he finds “in the space between our joy, passion, conscious thought and our fear…what lies in the shadows of our mind.” He often begins a painting with an inquiry or thought that turns into an allegory. “Brothers II,” for example, came from the following questions: “What is a sibling relationship? How do play and manipulation function between siblings?”

      “Brothers II” (2024), 260 x 161 centimeters

      “Visualisation can be so spontaneous,” he adds. “The whole painting just emerges while brushing my teeth for example.”

      Working in muted palettes of earth tones, Addison renders cubist figures with pointed flesh and geometric limbs. Stripping away clothing and distinctive facial features appeals to universal feelings and emotions, like unconditional love, anguish, and curiosity. He adds:

      I like the idea that someone 2,000 years in the future or past would still find a work meaningful and intelligible, perhaps even on an alien planet! Allegory is a powerful thing. Its popularity died as religion fell out of vogue, and we became more literate, but I love a story captured in image. It can say so much more than the word.

      Addison is preparing for his next solo show with Aktion Art in 2026. Follow his work on Instagram.

      “How Long Must This Silence Echo” (2021), oil on linen, 140 x 89 centimeters

      “Mother, Mother” (2021), oil on linen, 150 x 150 centimeters

      “The Conversation” (2023), oil on Linen, 260 x 183 centimeters

      “Becoming Myself Without Any End” (2024), 263 x 142 centimeters

      “Something From Nothing” (2023), oil and watercolor on linen, 400 x 200 centimeters

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    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Art

      Architecture and Bold Geometry Fragment Cubist Portraits by Patrick Oberhi Akpojotor

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      Art

      #architecture
      #cubism
      #identity
      #painting
      #portraits
      #self-portrait

      March 1, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      “FELA the Rattle” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches. All images © Patrick Oberhi Akpojotor, shared with permission
      In his architectural portraits, Patrick Oberhi Akpojotor visualizes the exchange between humans and their built environments, whether real or imagined. The artist’s spatial body of work, which explicitly contemplates the relationship between interiority and exteriority, is founded in his childhood in Lagos, a city checkered with traditional, colonial, and contemporary structures where he still lives today. “I saw how a former residential area became a commercial one changing how people interacted with that community,” he says.
      Rendered in bold blocks of acrylic, Akpojotor’s paintings encourage introspection as they consider how identities inform the design of single buildings and infrastructure, which in turn shape the people who occupy those spaces. The anthropomorphic structures evoke cubist geometry and illusion, fracturing the body with a staircase, brick chimney, or entire house, and some works shown here, including both “In Memory of the Living” pieces, are self-portraits.
      Beyond his surroundings in Nigeria, Akpojotor derives inspiration from ancient African sculptures and masks, particularly “the way the forms are intentionally distorted to pass messages and symbols of their (beliefs),” he shares. “In my work, the way object(s) are placed does not matter. What is important is that the object(s) are represented, and the message is passed.”
      Find a collection of Akpojotor’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures on his site, in addition to studio shots and glimpses at works-in-progress on Instagram. (via Juxtapoz)

      “In Memory of the Living I” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
      Left: “In my Image” (2020), acrylic on canvas, 96 x 63 inches. Right: “Oga Boss” (2020), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
      “Girl with Red Ribbon” (2021), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
      Left: “Witness to the times” (2020), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches. Right: “Time” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
      “In Memory of the Living II” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

      #architecture
      #cubism
      #identity
      #painting
      #portraits
      #self-portrait

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      in Art

      Picasso-Inspired Portrait Sculptures Rendered by Digital Artist Omar Aqil

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       All images © Omar Aqil Pakistan-based art director and illustrator Omar Aqil (previously) continues his Character Illustrations series with more collaged portraits made from stacks of 3D objects. Using digital software including Adobe Photoshop, Cinema 4D, Octane, and Adobe Illustrator, Aqil creates Picasso-esque faces and places them into random, casual scenes. The shadows, highlights, […] More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Art

      Life’s Sublime Moments Unearthed in Cubist Paintings by Connor Addison

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       “Innocence Lost” (2020), oil on linen,172 x 94 centimeters. All images © Connor Addison Barcelona-based painter and photographer Connor Addison situates his recent series of oil paintings within the context of philosopher Edmund Burke’s theory of the sublime. That notion is based on the idea that “whatever is in any sort terrible or operates […] More