Dutch artist Bobbi Essers creates paintings that require careful looking. In her kaleidoscopic vignettes, fragments of bodies, fabrics, and flesh overlap and meld into cohesive visions. Opening September 28, 2024, at Unit, London, Essers will be the subject of her first major solo exhibition, “The World at Our Command,” ahead of London’s Frieze week. On view through December 8, the exhibition will reveal a new body of work that showcases the artist’s ongoing interrogation of preconceived notions around gender and identity.
Bobbi Essers, Should we just keep driving? (2024). Courtesy of Unit, London.
Based in Amsterdam, Essers (b. 2000) graduated with her B.A. from Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU) in 2022, which is also the year she was awarded the Buning Brongers Prize for Painting. Last year, the was the recipient of the Royal Award for Modern Painting, which was presented to her by HRH King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. And in 2024, she is set to graduate from the Frank Mohr Institute, Groningen, the Netherlands, with her M.F.A.
Her work was featured in two institutional group shows this year, “In Focus” at the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, and “Licked by the Waves” at Museum MORE, Gorssel. The forthcoming solo at Unit promises to be her most comprehensive to date and marks a pivotal moment in the emerging artist’s career.
Bobbi Essers, Yet we still want more (2024). Courtesy of Unit, London.
“The World at Our Command” offers a sweeping look at the current zeitgeist of contemporary youth, and the myriad social and cultural milieus that are constantly grappled with. “I’m so interested in this generation’s culture—our clothing, our actions—and I’m proud to archive our fun, love, and the beautiful moments we share,” said Essers.
Bobbi Essers, Worlds apart but close at heart (2024). Courtesy of Unit, London.
Through unexpected cropping, evocative vignettes, and nuanced figuration, Essers’ paintings read as both deeply personal and widely relatable. Exploring ideas of friendship and broader human connection, with a hefty dose of a sense of adventure, the body of work speaks to the struggle many young people experience when it comes to identity, sexuality, gender, and finding community. The meticulous rendering of an arm or leg, outstretched hand, as well as clothing and skin presents viewers with something akin to a visual puzzle: which element belongs with which figure? Where does the background end and the foreground begin? The various inextricable parts make literal not only the abstract experiences of life, but ideas around emotions and memories.
Together, the life-sized paintings present visitors with the opportunity to journey through commonly held assumptions around gender, clothing as signifier, and how the people around us shape our realities.
“Bobbi Essers: The World at Our Command” is on view at Unit, London, September 28–December 8, 2024.