Talk #93

Brian Mountford

Brian Mountford's work has an unstable propensity that results in surprising juxtapositions and unusual interplays. These often manifest as elongated anatomies and intertwining hairy flesh, like cartoon matter that comically masquerades as semi-human body horror. His approach to painting is organic; he searches for a tension that exists within the process of making decisions in the work and arrive at this point through chance. He is attracted to the playfulness of painting and the notion of creating his own visual world inhabited by the creatures of his imagination. In his most recent body of work, there is a reoccurring theme of the grotesque and the abject, that expands upon philosophical ideas dealing with the uncanny. The paintings are multi-layered; their creation and their subject matter are constructed from both disposable and significant artistic ideas and social beliefs, such as 1980s trash culture, cryptozoology, horror, sci-fi, the supernatural and folklore. The beauty of the painting medium and what it has to offer, paired with the contradictory ugliness of its subject matter, creates a weird and uneasy pictorial landscape. Brian has an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art 2017-2019.