Andrew Curtis is presenting a new exhibition of his solo paintings at PayneShurvell 71 Blandford St, London W1. Curtis produces images of suburban dissonance by blurring physical and psychological reality. Using our shared knowledge and preconceptions of suburbia, he questions contemporary notions of anomie, the abject and the exotic. Recurrent motifs in Curtis’s earlier work are the anachronistic signs of cultural appropriation; significantly the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria Araucana), used to decorate Victorian suburbia.
Continuing his fascination with the suburban landscape, for this new exhibition Curtis presents six paintings in aluminium paint on raw canvas which refer 1:1 in scale and design to the subject of his photographs of garage doors which have been removed from their ‘frame’. Each painting is built up in multiple layers of metallic paint producing a semi-mirrored surface set against thin lines of raw cotton duck. Curtis sees the way that garage doors are painted and seasonally repainted as echoing the intentions of mid-20th-century abstract artists, whether minimal, expressive or optical.
Andrew Curtis (b. 1979, London) graduated with an MA in Fine Art Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 2009. He was chosen for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition (2009). His work is held in various collections, including the Royal College of Art, the V&A, Oregon State University, Queen’s University, Belfast, University of Wales and private collections in the UK, Italy, and the USA. His last solo show was The Leisure Circle (PayneShurvell, 2013). He is a director of Coriander and Curwen Studio and design group International Lawns.
Also on show will be a limited edition print ‘Index’ by Craig Burnett.
Andrew Curtis Garage Door Paintings PayneShurvell at 71 Blandford Street, London W1 27 September – 26 October 2016