BESTIAL
“Bestial” is a word that refers to fauna but also serves as a superlative adjective for something impressive, incredible, brutal, or savage. The exhibition delves into the relationship between nature and humanity from a critical, playful, and ironic standpoint. Animals exhibit human-like qualities and gestures, venturing into unknown realities.
Energetic and furious strokes with maximum saturation bring metamorphic beasts to life, appearing to explode within the canvas. Intense and contradictory, flora and fauna seek each other in a dreamlike universe, exploring the uncertain condition of the natural world and the humanity that dominates it. In this solo exhibition, through paintings and sculptures crafted from various materials, Hayon transcends reality and imagination to explore themes of fragility, uncertainty, and the ongoing quest for self-discovery.
“In the exhibition “Bestial”, I highlight the crucial role animals have played in art history, symbolizing emotions and human experiences across civilizations. From the Egyptians who humanized animals in their gods to artists like Picasso, Dalí and Rousseau, animals express strength, rage, and passion in our daily lives.
Jaime draws inspiration from this heritage to create fantastical forms that convey humanized feelings. He finds profound inspiration in ancient Egyptian art and Flemish flower paintings, where vibrant colors contrast against dark backgrounds. For Jaime, connecting past and present is vital, reflecting how animals, fauna, and flora have enriched the pictorial and sculptural narratives throughout human history.
About Jaime Hayon
Born in Madrid in 1974, Jaime Hayon’s creative skills know no boundary. Oscillating between, furniture, objects, tapestries and carousels, Hayon creates a narrative universe uniquely his own.
Jaime Hayon draws upon his deep-rooted connection to art in all aspects of his life. His work reflects his unique perspective on the world, a playful yet insightful exploration of the human psyche expressed through his zoomorphic, colorful, and folkloric paintings. He began producing his significant body of work some 20 years ago and has constantly developed
his aesthetic across various disciplines, including design, sculpture, and painting.
Through his work, Hayon invites us to reconsider the meaning of craftsmanship in the 21st century, blending traditional techniques with a visionary creative approach that defies easy categorization.
Like a 21st-century archaeologist, he examines and excavates recurrent themes of diversity, metamorphosis, and hybridization to create a unique visual language that is accessible, intriguing, and instantly identifiable as Hayon.
Hayon’s relationship with materials, notably marble, stone, and ceramics, is integral to his artistic universe. A visceral and intuitive approach to color and technique reflects his deep ethnographic curiosity. He creates his own cosmos with characters and personal codes that are visually engaging and make powerful emotional connections. His creatures and beings explore introspection, fear, and desire, charged with a generosity that invites us to share his vision. Wildly colored landscapes are populated by binary species and dual beings that are a whimsical yet profound reflection of the world we live in. In these works, he plays with irony and scandal to address the monstrous imbalances created by humanity’s actions. He depicts a reality that mutates and explodes around us, pushing at the boundaries and questioning our truths.
In his paintings, love, desire, fear, abandonment, and courage take us on a journey of the human experience, inviting us to embrace the fantastical and lose ourselves in Hayon’s world of wonder and curiosity. Hayon extends an invitation to engage with the depths of our psyche and explore our emotions.
