Jason Boyd Kinsella – ‘Fleshless Portraiture’

Jason Boyd Kinsella started painting again at the age of 50 after 30 years in the advertising industry – and he’s getting exceptional exposure (and prices), especially in Asia.

In 2021, two years into his exit from corporate ad life, the painting Summers (the elder) sold for HK $1.6 million at auction in Hong Kong, more than six times its estimated high of $32,100. The Toronto-born Kinsella, based now based in Norway, is getting serious attention, and major exhibitions. (Below, his solo show this fall at Unit London, his second with the distinguished gallery)

It’s Kinsella’s deft combination of the elements of classical portraiture with contemporary artistry that captures attention. Throughout his works, his subjects sit or stand as they would for Old World portrait sessions.

“This brand of hyper-contemporary psychological portraiture aims to deconstruct the personality traits of the sitter, using geometric shapes as building blocks to convey the complexity of human emotion,” Kinsella says. He calls it “fleshless portraiture.”

Kinsella spent part of his childhood in classes at the Art Gallery of Ontario, received a Fine Art degree from BIshop’s University in Quebec, then entered the advertising world. Today, he stacks multi-dimensiona blocks and cylinders into the features of his painted and sculpted subjects before applying vivid color.

“The focal element of his artistic expression is the deconstruction of his characters’ personality traits using distinct geometric units that represent their individuality according to the Myers-Briggs test,” his profile at Unit London says.

In addition to his fall, 2023 show at Unit London, Kinsella’s solo exhibitions include Mentalverse, Perrotin, Dubai (2022); The Impermanent State of Being, Perrotin, Paris (2022) and Fragments, Unit London, UK (2021). Selected group exhibitions and international art fairs include Art Basel, Perrotin, Basel, Switzerland (2023); Art Tokyo, Unit London, Tokyo, Japan (2023) and Playground of Geometry, Centre of International Contemporary Art Vancouver (2022). Kinsella’s work is held in multiple prominent collections including the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, USA; Long Museum, Shanghai, China and Centre of International Contemporary Art Vancouver (CICA), Vancouver, among others.

Jason Boyd Kinsella’s website, here.

At Unit London, here.

His Instagram, here.

An essay from the Art Gallery of Ontario here.