Outsider Gallery proudly presents 'FRAGMENTS', a body of work spanning four decades which has, until now, remained largely hidden from public view.

De Jong’s previously unseen paintings depict figures in relationship to themselves and one another, constantly emerging out of and dissolving into their shapeless environments. His spontaneous, uncontrived style blends cubist and Art Brut aesthetics into an authentic and joyful visual language. Sensual, contorted scenes weave together love, joy, curiosity and peace in stream of consciousness flow – intertwining beauty, suffering and vulnerability. In this collection we find a set of contemplative, mysterious and playful pieces composed since 1984.

De Jong’s delicate scenes portray the intimate pain of connecting with another person. The tension of loving another so deeply that one wishes to be completely one with them, but never being able to. Figurative abstraction employed in varying intensities confronts the self as both an object in the world and a reality to be experienced. Melancholic, peaceful and alienating scenes offer us rare glimpses through the stained-glass lens of subjectivity.

Guy De Jong’s oeuvre brilliantly, paradoxically, reveals that there is a profound connection in separation: that separation can only be known through a cathartic point of contact. His art, a profound externalisation of his life and psyche, reveals that an awareness of difference is the very basis for an awareness of sameness – and that in this, the innate pain and frustration of separation can be sublimated into love.