Duncan McAfee
Courtesy of Turps
Born 1976, Hertford, UK, current Turps Off Site Painter, living and working in Camberwell, SE London.
Recent highlights include a double solo exhibition at 303 Projects and The Art Gallery, Lowestoft, Suffolk; Pause/Play exhibition with Brixton Art Club, London; Oh God, solo project with Kyle Marks Projects, Canada.
Especially for the Electric Art Car Boot Fair I've made some new Exploding Heads paintings in a series called the High-Voltage Edition following on from previous imaginary portraits in this series. I've also painted a small group of Domestic Bliss paintings which are more abstracted compositions exploring domesticity, figurative elements interacting with inanimate objects and imagery relating to the Kama Sutra. There are also a group of my Lockdown Drawings from which these new works have partly developed.
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.
