(click image for more details)Untitled, 2008
oil on canvas
21cm x 29cm
Ian Gonzcarow creates a world where the decorative and ornamental co-exist with the designs employed by consumerism, nationalism, religion and the military. Often rendered with stencilling and boldly diagrammatic lines, the motifs, signifiers and symbols he uses in his paintings and constructions are employed in an examination and manipulation of the various representations and manifestations of political symbolism in mass culture, both past and present.
His starting point is a self-confessed fascination in collecting such imagery. From there he sets about re-presenting these source materials, originally disparate in nature, in a way that blurs difference and creates both a debate around their creation and distribution by the state and/or the media as well as questioning
society's willingness to consume or identify with such things, whether they be the stars and stripes of the US flag, a smiley face, or a swastika.
In his use of the decorative and repetition, it is as if Gonczarow is somehow trying to undermine their power, to render the powerful impotent: 'I feel I am discovering ways in which the painting of these signs and signifiers can add deception, nullify and satirise the original aims by particular regimes or doctrines'.1
Paul Stone, 2008
1. Statement by the artist, Axis
find out more about this artist
find out more about Paul Stone
