Many Names
andriesse~eyck is proud to present the most recent drawings, paintings, and embroideries of Jakup Ferri in a solo exhibition Many Names.
Standing in a laboratory, surrounded by eprouvettes, bottles, pipes and glowing liquids, a man is cautiously looking through a microscope. However, this is not an ordinary man nor is it an ordinary laboratory; it is one of the many micro-universes drawn by Jakup Ferri (b. 1981).
Even though he was born in Pristina, Kosovo, Jakup Ferri discover naïve and outsider artists only after his move to Amsterdam. Up to that point the artist was mainly influenced by his father’s books – which were about Joan Miró, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti,.... Yet, as soon as Ferri became a part of that Western art world, he started looking for his inspiration elsewhere. Even though many of the lesser known artists often had no formal education, Ferri cherished them; as he found beauty in their humoristic and fantastical approach, and in the clever way they responded to the politically charged world around them. To many, it may seem that this is exactly where Ferri draws his inspiration from: the oversaturated paintings filled with comically oversized people and animals completing their mundane tasks. Yet, Ferri himself claims that his art has “no conceptual story and nothing hidden behind the surface” – he creates purely visual art.
Returning to the vibrant laboratory of Untitled (2023), it is evident where the artist’s true inspiration lays – in peculiar microorganisms (fungi, viruses, bacteria) seen through an electron microscope. Each new look into the lens is a look into a new micro-universe, the outlines of the microorganisms transform into fairytalelike characters. The unnamed man from the laboratory regularly occurs in Ferri’s micro-universes: he drives, juggles, eats, plays instruments, and does other everyday activities. Besides him a woman and a child often appear, a reference to Ferri’s personal life, as well as many other imaginary creatures with surrealist features of both people and animals. The artistic creations of Jakup Ferri joyfully co-exist in a utopia full of colour, pictorial wittiness, and gleam.
Unsure of how to verbalize his ideas, Jakup Ferri expresses himself through drawing. For him, the minutely detailed drawings are the place where he does the thinking. Many Names could be given to his works; hence the viewers are often given the freedom to name them themselves. His ideas also flow into other mediums, since Ferri feels the need to transform them into tangible objects. The drawings are translated into tapestries and carpets, which are made in collaboration with “invisible” non-Western craftspeople of Many Names – the title also suggests the cooperative aspect of Ferri’s work.
With his fifth exhibition in the gallery, the amusing universe of Jakup Ferri becomes bigger and bigger. Just like his witty characters, the artist also often jumps from one piece onto the other, sometimes leaving the previous one unfinished. This is not strange for Ferri though, but is yet another reference to the outsider artists that shaped him. And, according to the artist, a special kind of intimacy is created when a work is left for another to finish it.
BIO
Jakup Ferri studied at the Pristina Art Academy and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. In 2003 he was the recipient of two prestigious awards in Pristina: the Muslim Mulliqi Prize and the Artists of Tomorrow Award. He has been artist-in-residence at numerous places, including the International Studio and Curatorial Program New York, Kultur Kontakt Austria, and currently Werkplaats Molenwijk in Amsterdam. Aside his long history with andriesse~eyck gallery, Ferri’s work has been shown extensively in international (solo and group) exhibitions in museums and galleries, festivals and biennials, including Venice Biennale, Manifesta 14 Biennial, Istanbul Biennial, Taipei Biennial, Kunsthalle Fridericianum; De Appel Amsterdam; Kunstraum Innsbruck; The National Gallery of Kosovo, Art Rotterdam, Art Island, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin. Most recently, his work was exhibited in Kunstmuseum Luzern until 28 May.