‘I enjoy picking at that wound of not knowing visually what something means. I remember, growing up, I never understood any paintings, what they meant or why that subject had been chosen…So I think I enjoy that…fear, almost, of looking at an image.’
JP Munro quoted by Murray Healy in ‘In Deeper Reference Praise’, POP, Autumn / Winter 2004
JP Munro’s paintings zoom in on history, illustrating selected moments and acting out scenes from mythology. Emperors and their lackeys peer into tombs, warriors engage in bloody battles, and figures indulge in pagan rites and mass orgies. The bodies are often the rich golden colour of sandstone, lending them a statue-like quality that compounds their sense of history.
In one of Munro’s latest paintings, the Battle of the Hydaspes plays out as a mass of flailing limbs and naked torsos engaged in violent combat; figures brandish swords and spears and seek protection beneath shields, their blood red capes swirling and horses rearing against a fiery sunset. In Orgy Chamber, the sea of bodies writhes in ecstasy in a palatial setting of sumptuous greens and reds, bathed in the sensuous glow of lanterns. The unpopulated scenes offer a contrasting calm, such as a study of wonderously intriguing rock formations in caves, cast in an eerie subterranean light. Elsewhere Munro zooms in on dense, rampant tropical vegetation; only the title, Green Jungle Hell, suggests a threatening undercurrent, and with it a hint of the narratives played out in his other paintings.
Fantastically ornate and painted with rich, opulent colours, JP Munro’s paintings are peppered with art historical references. At the same time, his aesthetic is thoroughly individual and contemporary. His paintings swing from decadence to trash, from the macabre to hedonistic pleasure.
This is JP Munro’s second exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ. In 2004, he was in a three person exhibition at Transmission Gallery in Glasgow and was included in 100 Artists See God at ICA, London.
