#HTE

Impasto Mountains Rise from the Canvas in Richly Textured Paintings by Conrad Jon Godly

“TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #5” (2018), oil on canvas, 170 x 170 cm, all images courtesy of JD Malat Gallery

Conrad Jon Godly (previously) paints in thick, impasto strokes to form snow-capped peaks and mountain ranges in icy black, white, and blue. The textured formations on canvas have feathered edges that mimic the high altitude wind, a technique that makes you almost feel the subject’s arctic blast. The works are at once abstract and hyperreal. Blunt gestures of his paint knife obscure any sort of image at close viewing, and yet a pristine image of a mountain comes into view when one takes a few steps back.

Godly grew up in Davos, Switzerland amid the Swiss Alps, an environment that has become his muse. “My surroundings have a huge influence on me, artistically and personally,” he explains in the press release of his current exhibition To See is Not to Speak at JD Malat Gallery in London. “I don’t see myself as a landscape painter, I am interested in capturing the mood and feeling of light, or the reflection of the moon on snow.”

Godly had a previous life as a photographer where he learned how to harness light and understand visual texture. These lessons he brings into his large-scale canvases, which evoke the moody experience of cloudy mountain ranges covered in fresh snow. Currently the artist lives between Switzerland and Japan. His work is currently being exhibited at the Zona Maco art fair in Mexico City with JD Malat Gallery until February 10, 2019, and his solo exhibition with the gallery runs through March 2, 2019. You can see more of Godly’s paintings on his website and Instagram.

“TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #2” (2018), oil on canvas, 150 x 130 cm

“TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #12” (2018), oil on canvas, 150 x 130 cm

Conrad Jon Godly, “TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #4” (2018), oil on canvas, 170 x 140 cm

“TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #6” (2018), Oil on Canvas, 170 x 230 cm

“TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #7” (2018), oil on canvas, 200 x 170 cm

“TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #10” (2018), oil on canvas, 170 x 200 cm

“TO SEE IS NOT TO SPEAK #11” (2018), oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm