Extravagance, fantasy, lust and sensitivity are the cardinal factors of Jeremy’s observe. Soaked in pink and enhanced with intentionally overelaborate vases, “Mourning Opulence” takes us on a journey off the crushed observe of heteronormativity, whose invisible but omnipresent veil is subverted by a queer gloss. Drawing from each mythology and video video games, the artist envisions his observe as world-building. Every portray opens the door to a brand new territory with its personal protagonists, adventures, guidelines and language. Giant-format works alternate with smaller canvases, which punctuate the present like commas permitting for moments of pause. Pieced collectively they kind a fragmented narrative, and map an opulent universe of varied references, motifs and colours, surrounded by a camp aura.

Gender identification is central to Jeremy’s observe, wherein each the masculine physique and its modes of illustration turn into a subject of thorough investigation. Impressed by the Chimera, a legendary hybrid creature, Jeremy explores the bounds of anatomy by way of a group of shapeshifters who populate the exhibition area and battle to adapt to generally hostile environments. Resisting categorization by giving form to fluidity, he renders amorphous, swollen figures in metamorphosis, which each defy societal expectations and warp the canons of artwork historical past.

Liberating and provocative, Jeremy’s physique of labor discloses need and fantasies. Sexless however sexual, his epicene mutants show their muscular our bodies and voluptuous curves on the partitions of the gallery. By no means frontal, the eroticism that permeates the exhibition depends on suggestive motifs, resembling tumescent veins or lascivious curls. A way of subverted innocence pervades the works, which finds its epitome within the swirls of hair that unfold throughout canvases. Drawing from each the manga of the Nineteen Eighties and the historical past of material in portray and sculpture, hair turns into the allusive motif par excellence, the trace that attracts consideration to what it pretends to hide.

Jeremy unfurls erotic and tender painted strains which convey an emotionally ambiguous cost that can’t go away anybody detached. Every portray follows surprising roads, expressing the artist’s insatiable curiosity and thirst for experimentation. Drawing from a repertoire of heterogenous references together with Ovid, Georges Bataille, Italian Baroque, Captain Harlock and German Expressionism, Jeremy cultivates an intrepid aesthetic that’s unafraid of frictions, clashes or incongruous juxtapositions. In Notes on Camp (1964), an influential reference for the artist, echoed in lots of respects by his observe, Susan Sontag writes: “Camp style turns its again on the good-bad axis of odd aesthetic judgment. [. . .] What it does is to supply for artwork (and life) a unique—a supplementary—set of requirements.”

Drawing on sincerity and generosity, and fueled by irrepressible feelings, Jeremy’s requirements are demanding however rewarding for individuals who be part of the dance. Regardless of its deathly allusions, “Mourning Opulence” is much from a danse macabre. As a rule, Jeremy’s work evoke memento vivi, which convey an undaunted and essential name to reclaim one’s proper to exist and take up area, absolutely and unapologetically. Regardless of if it’s barely an excessive amount of, irrespective of if it’s generally imperfect, so long as it’s flamboyant.

at Peres Tasks, Berlin
till March 17, 2023