Duncan McAfee
Born 1976, Hertford, UK, current Turps Off Site Painter, living and working in Camberwell, SE London.
Recent highlights include a solo exhibition at 303 Projects, Lowestoft (forthcoming); Pause/Play exhibition with Brixton Art Club, London; Oh God, solo project with Kyle Marks Projects, Canada.
I often describe my approach to painting and drawing as like playing a game of consequences with myself. I playfully employ misremembered bits of art history and contemporary imagery, combining pure flat colour, graphic and figurative elements with messy paintwork. The emerging characters look like street-drunks, beaten up cartoon characters spattered in Claret. They wrestle with themselves, contorted and dis-jointed, uncomfortably torn between figuration and abstraction, but strangely celebratory; mascots of our confused cartoon world or Riddley Walker-esque prophets for what may come next.
Ultimately I love contradictions. I make loose, sideways references to art history, philosophy, religious iconography and paint or draw these with irreverence; grand themes handled with a light touch.
