Poet Mark Doty once described the still life genre as ‘an art that points to the human by leaving the human out; nowhere visible, we’re everywhere.’
At Hurst Contemporary, Jorge K. Cruz, an emerging artist from the Tracey Emin Art Residency, in his debut solo exhibition, explores the Flemish still lifes, game still lifes, and hunting scenes, trying to find the humanness underneath their historically polished verneer.
The exhibition, Just to Keep You Satisfied running until April 7th, 2025, sits in dialogue particularly with Paul de Vos, as well as Frans Synders, and Peter Paul Rubens, treating these game still life scenes instead with a visceral immediacy and vigorous brutal brushmarks, that borders on the grotesque.
There’s something quite violent, raw and unsettling about these works. Flesh – both animate and inanimate are positioned alongside. These writing movements, bruised brush marks, there’s a kind of nausea that carries along these works. At its core, Just to Keep You Satisfied wrestles with appetite in all its forms, questioning whether hunger—physical or symbolic—can ever be sated.
Jorge K Cruz, Just to Keep You Satisfied, March 13th to April 7th, 2025 Hurst Contemporary
About the artist
Born in 1995 in the coastal city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, Jorge K. Cruz emigrated to New York City at 17.
He later relocated to Margate for the Tracey Emin Artist Residency (2023–2024) before returning to New
York, where he is now based. In 2023, he was featured in Breakthrough, a group exhibition at James
Fuentes Gallery (October 21–November 22)
