Andre Stitt
www.andrestitt.com
@andrestitt
Statement:
A predominate theme throughout my arts practice over the years is that of communities and their dissolution often relating to conflict and trauma. Ever since I can remember there’s always been a war on… haunted by a permanent present tense where nothing seems to have changed, yet everything has changed. These paintings from a recent series entitled ‘Invasion’ have been a response to the current war in Ukraine and embodied experiences of conflict that are intimately tied to the notion of place, identity and the cyclical legacies of human violence. The work draws upon the dematerialisation of the built environment through contemporary and historical narratives of conflict and their abstract displacement through painting as a memory of forms. In proposing a simulacrum, I wish to question our received notion of authenticity in a world constructed through neo-imperial economies of power and disinformation.
The ambition is for work that might create a sense of recognition counterbalanced by a sense of timelessness, loss and longing, proposed through paintings that seem to arrive as if from another time and place; a potential dissident space where eras elide.
Painting is utilised as a synthetic transmitter of experience that reflects the historical uncertainty of time and place, proposing contemporary art practice as a transformative medium with redemptive potential.
As such, I see my work occupying a position that is not static or fixed but part of a network of provocation.
www.andrestitt.com
@andrestitt
Statement:
A predominate theme throughout my arts practice over the years is that of communities and their dissolution often relating to conflict and trauma. Ever since I can remember there’s always been a war on… haunted by a permanent present tense where nothing seems to have changed, yet everything has changed. These paintings from a recent series entitled ‘Invasion’ have been a response to the current war in Ukraine and embodied experiences of conflict that are intimately tied to the notion of place, identity and the cyclical legacies of human violence. The work draws upon the dematerialisation of the built environment through contemporary and historical narratives of conflict and their abstract displacement through painting as a memory of forms. In proposing a simulacrum, I wish to question our received notion of authenticity in a world constructed through neo-imperial economies of power and disinformation.
The ambition is for work that might create a sense of recognition counterbalanced by a sense of timelessness, loss and longing, proposed through paintings that seem to arrive as if from another time and place; a potential dissident space where eras elide.
Painting is utilised as a synthetic transmitter of experience that reflects the historical uncertainty of time and place, proposing contemporary art practice as a transformative medium with redemptive potential.
As such, I see my work occupying a position that is not static or fixed but part of a network of provocation.
Invasion l
95 x 95cm
Acrylic and Blk 3.0 on canvas,
2022
95 x 95cm
Acrylic and Blk 3.0 on canvas,
2022