Jack Penny

Jack Penny’s paintings are serious works that don’t take themselves too seriously, allowing viewers to get closer. Mischievous, unruly, and elusive, his deliberate compositions delight in disruption. Rather than making demands, they offer suggestions and aim to find fun in the process. Penny rarely begins with a specific set of imagery or drafts his paintings beforehand. He prefers not to know exactly where the work is heading, instead starting with a loose concept and working from memory and instinct, always prioritising the pure process of making itself.

He embraces immediacy and openness in his process, leaving room for mistakes and spontaneity. This approach allows Penny to develop a dynamic relationship with the canvas, trusting his ideas to evolve through the act of painting. His work reflects a daily process of input and feedback, avoiding straightforward interpretation while capturing hidden energy and kinetic potential through bold, jarring compositions.

Penny is drawn to the tension between order and chaos, a theme central to his work. He explores the contradiction between the human need for structure and the desire for escape. His subjects are often depicted in moments of routine—whether at work, play, in harmony, or conflict—capturing not only joy and release but also anxiety and stress and clamour. 

As Penny engages with these figures, they often seem to push beyond the boundaries of two-dimensional space, embodying a sense of bursting energy.

His subjects, who may appear tragic, comedic, saintly, or sinister—sometimes all at once—celebrate the underdog and the incomplete, messy nature of human experience –  our divinity and absurdity refracted through the simple performance of living – of moving, doing, giving, taking, making, failing and trying again.