“The works were re-created in oil paint on canvas from images I constructed on my iPhone. I take these photographs around my home in Florida and then paint over them with different characters. These light creatures hang out with dogs, or dance on the abandoned boat dock. I would sit outside alone by the water and create alien-like friends on a low-key cosmic tropical playground”. — Harmony Korine

Known as one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, Harmony Korine has also cultivated a longtime painting practice that expands the definitions of art and artist through a multimedia approach infused with a post-Pop aesthetic. Painted in Miami, his Joven Twitchy works capture the sinister beauty of South Florida; they reflect the tropical fantasia of his films Spring Breakers (2012) and The Beach Bum (2019). Harmony Korine, who has been drawing since childhood, conceives of his “Twitchy” character as an imaginary companion—a ghost that accompanies him on a psychogeographic tour of Miami.

Harmony Korine originally conceived the Twitchy paintings as studies for his films. He creates each image using a smartphone, digitally hand-painting over the photographs before projecting the finished images onto canvas and rendering them in oil paint. Richard Prince describes Harmony Korine’s series as existing in a “post-place… something about past present future.” “You used to be on the phone,” he writes, “now you are in the phone.” Crossing the line between actuality and animation, Harmony Korine fills his canvases with bright, electric colors that approach disintegration while still feeling physically real, an effect akin to the bursts of light often used in cinematic special effects. Yet behind these vibrant hues lies a foreboding darkness; through Harmony Korine’s paintings, the South Florida landscape becomes an otherworldly realm inhabited by enigmatic, even alien forces.

You can find Harmony Korine’s work in the bestseller published by Drago in 2005: Young Sleek and Full of Hell by Aaron Rose, who showed at his Alleged Gallery in New York, the then emerging talents, with a complete and utter disregard for the status quo, photographers and filmmakers like Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Jim Jarmush, Terry Richardson, Mark Borthwick, Bruce LaBruce, artists like Barry McGee, Ed Templeton, Thomas Campbell, Shepard Fairey, Rita Ackermann, designers like Susan Cianciolo, musicians like Thurston Moore, Unsane, Surgery, Railroad Jerk, Cibo Matto, The Boredoms, Kim Gordon and many more.

Harmony Korine was born in 1973 in Bolinas, California, and lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee, and Miami, Florida. Exhibitions include S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium (2000); Whitney Biennial, New York (2000); 50th Biennale di Venezia (2003); Pigxote, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, TN (2009); Shadows and Loops, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (2016–17); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017). Korine’s films include: Kids (1995, written by Korine, directed by Larry Clark), Gummo (1997, written and directed by Korine), Julien Donkey-Boy (1999, written and directed by Korine), Ken Park (2002, written by Korine, directed by Larry Clark and Ed Lachman), Mister Lonely (2007, written by Korine, codirected with Avi Korine), Trash Humpers (2009, written and directed by Korine), Spring Breakers (2012, written and directed by Korine), and The Beach Bum (2019, written and directed by Korine). Harmony Korine is represented by Gagosian.