Jon Erik Nyholm | It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You

Bricks Gallery is pleased to present It Wouldn’t Be the Same Without You, a solo exhibition by Jon Erik Nyholm, with an opening reception on Friday, August 14, from 5-8 PM. This exhibition features seven oil paintings on canvas, all framed in waxed oak.

In Jon Erik Nyholm's series of new paintings, a number of questions seem to arise regarding the motifs. However, more important than the questions themselves is their order and hierarchy.

First, the functions of nature dissolve, such as flowers blooming and withering once more. The plant stems become cracks in a mirror, boding misfortune. We ask if humanity is to blame, but it appears subject to the same regime of dissolved and dismantled functions.

Is it a lush meadow, a flowerbed, or are we underwater? The landscape and the scene are ambiguous; the drama is equally unanchored. A tsunami of flowers. How are we to believe what we see when it does not stem from a recognisable point of origin? How are we to define our own belief when the ground beneath our feet is so fluid, opaque, and, not least, masquerades as all things at once? False landscape, dissolved identity.

The frozen ice landscape is sharp and impenetrable. Yet lush and rich in plant life. A lonely figure wanders through in a sleepwalking state, as if in a dream. Perhaps we are not being questioned about the figure's existence, but rather about the figure's needs and purpose in this world.

Painted in violet tones, as if to conjure images of the CIA's secret programmes in the late 1950s, where they force-fed unsuspecting subjects large amounts of LSD and locked them in coloured rooms to discover which colour had the most negative impact on the human psyche during prolonged isolation. Violet was a clear winner.

A yellow-brown painting stands flickering. Slowly, it mythologises itself into the tree of life. Seconds later, into the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb, and finally, an abstraction of the cerebral cortex emerges. The human cockpit and control centre.

But the motif's control over itself has long been lost. It is in full mutation, and just like the flowers and plants that seem to grow out of the paintings, control over the motif is not a static presence. It buds, blossoms, withers, and dies, goes into dormancy, and is born anew.

Where Nyholm's previous paintings appeared as ghosts and transparent phantoms of residual energy from a defunct romantic landscape, it now feels as though the paintings have become a cyclical rebirth in an infinite wheel, constantly turning on its own axis, carrying the motif, the landscape, the human, the scene, and the drama along for the ride. A painting that moves toward the figurative, the recognisable, and the narrative, yet simultaneously dissolves, darkens, and branches out the understanding of itself in all its vibrant and radiant simplicity. A painting that evokes a paradoxical sense of future nostalgia.

Of course, it wouldn't be the same without you and without the landscape. Without the memories and recollection, and without any preconceived images of what the world and its inhabitants look like. Without a collective history or point of origin.

Our hands are tied behind our backs and we are blindfolded on our way through Nyholm's grand garden.

But the path lights up and we can feel the warmth in our feet. Whether we are moving in the right direction is unknown. Perhaps it is irrelevant, as long as we and the landscape remain in motion.

Text by Peter Larsen

Jon Erik Nyholm (b. 1982) is a Danish artist born in Aarhus who now lives and works in Copenhagen (DK). He holds a MFA from both The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen (DK) and a BA from the University College for the Creative Arts in Canterbury (UK). Recent exhibitions include Market Art Fair with Bricks Gallery (2026, SE), ‘Jord Uden Himmel’ at Bricks Gallery (2025, DK), ’Det Nære Det Sære Det Smukke Det Store ’at 1.SAL.100 (2024, DK), ’Verdant Fade’ at Bricks Gallery (2022, DK), and ’Dear Hunter’ at LIST (2019, DK).

The opening reception is sponsored by Nørrebrew, offering organic beers and non-alcoholic drinks.