Time suspended – the work of Jonas Burgert

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Burgert's work is informed by the art of centuries ago, the theories of Freud, and comtemporary pop culture - that's a lot to pack in to each canvas, as Rosalind Ormiston discovers

A vast, monumental painting spanning eight metres dominates German artist Jonas Burgert’s new body of work in a solo show at Blain/Southern Gallery, Hanover Square, London (until 22 November). In Stück Hirn Blind, 2014 (350 x 800 x 4 cm) (literally 'Piece Brain Blind'), Burgert presents a world where time is suspended. Across the canvas, thick with multi-layered paint, he portrays people as contorted other-worldly creatures, semi-human, partly surreal. The scene looks like a post-nuclear resurrection day. Burgert calls it ‘an abstract mountain of trash’ but the art of the Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch (d.1516), with its fantastical imagery, comes to mind.

The artist’s use of fluorescent colour, ultra-bright yellows, purples, pink, electric blues and reds, in this painting and others, arrests and commands your attention. It is his signature trademark. Stück Hirn Blind is a show opener that sets the pace for other works on display. Opposite is puls führt, 2014 (240 x 280 cm), a portrayal of a horse, perhaps fallen to the ground during a storm. Its eyes are blindfolded and the animal rears its head round as if to rebalance itself. It lies in a barren landscape. On its back are multicoloured materials. Where has it come from? Is it a pack horse? Where was it going? The work raises many questions from the viewer; it makes you want to know more and in this singular image Burgert has created an unfinished story. The exhibition is worth visiting for this painting alone but there is much more to reveal.

Burgert knows how to use colour, creating figurative and abstract elements that push image and shape to the foreground. He can create an immersive calm, too. On the lower ground floor are a series of portraits. immer, 2014 (oil on canvas), portrays the head and shoulders of a young person, the partially hidden face framed by a large headdress of black bandages. The paint drips down the canvas to create an unfinished quality. Just one eye is visible and it stares out to meet the gaze of the onlooker. The portrayal has the effect of revealing and concealing simultaneously. In this portrait Burgert captures humanity, much like Rembrandt’s portraits so masterfully conveyed. Others here, Hӓlfte Schlӓfe, 2014, Leiher,2014, and the full length portraits Zartbleib, 2014 and the delicate stand, 2014, are special works. Surrealism edges into other portraits such as scheucht. 2014, and the colourful, extraordinary Windhirn, 2014.

Burgert (born 1969), lives and works in Berlin. His work is theatrical and it is said that ‘he paints a stage every time he lifts his brush’. That is evident in the 30 works on display in this latest London show. Burgert sees it as ‘theatre-play’, a way of making sense of life and its purpose. His art is informed by the accomplished northern Renaissance painters, by Freud’s psychoanalytical theories, contemporary pop culture and the work of David Lynch, amongst others, visible through fragmented glimpses of another world in Burgert’s canvases and sculptures.

Not to be missed at Blain/Southern are the painted bronze sculptures, including the striking figure einen leicht, 2014, the disconcerting duldet, 2014, who lolls on a plinth, and Staub I and Staub II, 2014, two highly decorative detached limbs.