The duplicity of human nature is deeply troubling. In small groups we are often full of love, empathy, and kindness, but in societies we inevitably become aggressive, destructive, and divisive – the sole reason my research field exists.
My art wrestles with accepting this moral dichotomy by reflecting on humanity's transience and finding peace in the impermanence.
ARTIST BIO
Jordan Plotnek was born in Sydney in 1992, but spent their formative years in Porto Alegre and childhood in Melbourne. Seeking an escape from their highly religious upbringing, Jordan commissioned into the Australian Defence Force as an electronics engineer at age 19. They were subsequently deployed on several military operations, including leading a Middle East tour in 2016-17.
Jordan learned to use art as a coping mechanism from a young age, but by 2019 a hyper-awareness of the human capacity for destruction cemented their art practice as a core part of their life and identity. Their artwork quickly proved to resonate with a wide audience; being internationally collected, commissioned, and gallery represented within the first month of going public. Today, Plotnek originals can be found in over a dozen countries as part of private and corporate collections across five continents.
Plotnek's work seeks to reconcile the inescapable darkness in humanity with its own transient impermanence through the creation of a visual language they term "abstract existentialism". Their artwork consists of distinctively nihilistic marks and abstracted symbols, painted in ominously calming iridescent earth tones and heavily shadowed textures that shift with ambient light.
