March 2014
La Petite Mort Gallery presents
ANDREW MONCRIEF
DE/GENERATE / New Paintings
March 7 – 29, 2014
Vernissage Friday March 7 / 7 – 10pm
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Artist Statement:
The human face is enthralling; it is our primary means of communication. Working with the male figure I am interested in re-constructing a painting from photographs that I capture of my subjects. Having my sitters manipulate their own faces in front of the camera I try to reference, indirectly, images of facial deformities that I have archived from medical textbooks. I seek to skew perception, to scrutinize, and to expose a vulnerability in my subjects that is awkward and beautiful.
There is a morbid beauty in these graphic images which fascinates me, not only formally but also allegorically, as if these traumas where some sort of physical transference of psychological torments or insecurity. I am most interested in how my/our neurosis translates to the exterior and the connection between physical and psychological trauma, imagining what would happen if the latter manifested itself in some sort of physical way like a deformity or wound.
In this context I believe painting becomes the deprecating act in which I am free to project my/our own neurosis upon the subject. More often than not the manner in which I apply paint is something that is violent or abusive and involves my entire body. Marks build up to create the subject but at the same time deform and disparage it, scaring and wounding the figure yet, in the end, forming and defining its identity.
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Bio:
Andrew Edward Moncrief is a young emerging artist born and raised on Vancouver Island, presently based out of Montreal. Working in varying media forms, predominantly the overlap of photography, sculpture painting and drawing, while focusing primarily on portraiture and the figure. Andrew first started his studies on Vancouver Island where he grew up, where he soon after transferring to NSCAD in Halifax, eventually settling in Montreal after being accepted into Concordia’s Painting and Drawing Program. He has been involved in and coordinated several small student run art shows on Vancouver Island as well as participation in various group shows in Montreal and Ottawa. Andrew is a recent Undergraduate of Concordia University’s Bachelors of Fine Arts with a Major in Painting and Drawing and has also been the recipient of several bursaries and scholarships for excellence in arts: “Peter Robinson Entrance Bursary” 2006 at North Island College, the “George-Balcan Bursary for Painting and Drawing” (Concordia, 2012), the “D.L. Stevenson and Son’s Colour Scholarship” (Concordia 2013) as well as the “Cecil Buller and John J. A. Murphy Scholarship” for Drawing (Concordia 2013).