Gerry de Banzie (b. 2000, Maidstone) creates enigmatic oil paintings where colour and form combine to create compositions that continually evade capture. 

In his large-scale oils, Gerry demonstrates a masterful command of materiality and movement in his distinctive approach to abstraction. Working on the floor, he uses white spirit to transform paint into ethereal washes that drift across the canvas. These diluted oils build remarkable depth through careful layering, from bold swathes of saturated color to gossamer-thin veils that seem to hover in space and maintain a fluid vitality. They become hazy forms with determined lucidity, as carefully chosen colors merge, complement, and pull against one another. The resulting compositions exist in a constant state of becoming.

Gerry’s paintings are characteristically enigmatic, drawing on Jungian concepts of collective consciousness. Shapes speak to our internal faculties of recognition, perhaps we desire to see words, figures, landscapes, yet all ultimately remain incomprehensible. Both playful and engaging, these forms feel tantalisingly familiar yet refuse to resolve into known entities. The artist describes completing a work when he senses a ‘presence’-  a moment when the ‘what’ and the ‘where’ of the painting achieve harmonious tension.

Gerry graduated with a BA in Fine Art (Painting) from Camberwell College of Arts in 2023. His current studio practice at Crème Fraîche represents an exciting period of expansion, as he explores increasingly larger canvases and ventures into sculptural work. Gerry’s salon catalogue (January 2024) can be viewed here, and a body of work from 2024 can be viewed here.