Jordan Cantwell is a contemporary artist who follows an instinct driven process to uncover a visual harmony to our primal connection. This connection reaches back to something ancient and ritualistic, touching on the natural genesis of mark making. A native Californian of Sicilian and Irish descent, Cantwell is conscious of the nuanced differences in culture, particularly as this defines and delimits North American and European perspectives and identity. Cantwell's work is influenced by zoosophy, Mesoamerican myths and abstract expressionism. His travels have allowed his practice to touch on an outward facing approach to his visual language and a universality to our ancient selves. For Cantwell, painting is a medium for conjuring the life force of animals and spaces, yet one that also surrounds and inhabits us.

Statement

My paintings are the result of a ritualistic process. This process includes a series of combative encounters between the artist, the subject and the canvas; where the instinct driven process seeks to uncover a visual harmony to illuminate our forgotten selves. Learning to control the aspects of the process, to some degree, allows you to find secret structures that explain to the instinct of the visual. The movements of direction and perspective, in my paintings, act in a distortion of harmonious interactions and playful moments. The work can present a oneness of almost congested thickness, hints of depths, and constant shifting of weight. There is a musical aspect in the way things repeat, move forward, move in reverse, mutating and pushing matter as the flow pleases. The matter is usually suggested towards the natural world in the form of weathering landscapes, atmospheric energies, and the animals within us. Some present time and change within a geological melody. Some tell a story within a pattern, within a landscape, within an animal.  As technology manufactures changes to our immediate behavior, we will always long for our connection to the natural world, the landscape, the ancient knowledge we once held and the essence of our natural selves.