KORNFELD Galerie is pleased to announce our first exhibition with artist Jay Gard (*1984, in Halle, Germany) titled 'The Beginning of Shaping' in our special event venue 69salon. This exhibition will show a variety of works going from paintings to sculptures, objects and a mixture of them. All these works correlate to Jays distinctive venues of creating objects that become pieces of art on their own, capturing his distinctive style that dabbles between functionality in design with his adventurous artistic aesthetic that is reminiscent of the 1970s.

The idea that there is inherently rationality in art was argued by the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno in his late Aesthetic Theory (1970), suggesting that the rationality of art is connected to the impulsive act of expression. These two concepts tend to be at odds, creating tension but in reality neither can be understood without the other, rationality can not be understood without mimesis and vice versa.

The careful precision in the stage of creation of the objects harmonizes within the otherwise tense borderlands between art and craft. Finding his artistic roots during his upbringing in Eastern Germany, where there was a scarceness in variety when it came to objects and clothing which drove the locals to create their own individual pieces.
His family environment had a direct impact on his sense of aesthetic, growing up with an industrial designer as a father that would spend his time designing and creating all kinds of furniture, and a textile designer as a mother that would make unique pieces of clothing, understanding this sense of limitless variation in creation with the limitation of practicality were ingrained in Jay’s appreciation for art and design.

His background plus the clear influence from Goethe, Kandinsky, Runge and artists and intellectuals that oscillated between rationality and mysticism, including evidently the Bauhaus approach which was characterized by the attempt to unify individual artistic vision with mass production principles emphasizing on function and practicality. This exhibition handles with the dualities of these components creating a balance between them where art and design intertwine.
In this show the viewer can appreciate his deep interest of space and installation, objects, and visual but also auditory and functional relationship between viewer and objects in a space. Featuring a variety of works that emphasize on the multidimensionality of his artistry, from abstract paintings that depict his sculptures in an imaginary space, to sculptures and design inspired objects that combine functionality and art for the sake of art.

Jay Gard studied at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle. After an influential period as an assistant at the studios of Tom Sachs in New York and Thomas Demand in Berlin, he again devoted himself to studying art, attending Joachim Blank’s Installation and Space class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig.
He has received multiple awards including the Bauhaus Dessau Artist Residency in 2019, amongst others. Participated in multiple international and national solo shows at the Jonas-Mekas-Visual-Art-Center, Vilnius, Lithuania, the Haus am Lützowplatz im Ausstellungsraum der IG-Metall, Berlin, the Warte für Kunst, Kassel, and Museum Gunzenhauser, Chemnnitz as well as in galleries worldwide, amongst others the Half Gallery, Sexauer, Gather, KanyaKag, and a variety of Gorupshows including in Kunstverein Montez, Frankfurt, Kühlhaus, Berlin, Galerie Lisa Kandelhofer, Vienna, Austria, Sexauer booth, Rotterdam, Netherlands between others.