Art
#art history #oil painting #painting
October 18, 2021
Grace Ebert
All images © Andrew McIntosh, shared with permission
In abandoned sheds, tiny campers and towering hilltop castles, Scottish artist Andrew McIntosh (formerly) nests bright entrances to mysterious new worlds. Illuminated portals are central to the artist’s continued interest in exploration, curiosity, and an endless desire to discover the unknown, and they provide a small window into what lies beyond the immediate landscapes. . Each of the compositions exudes a ghostly air, with fog or storm clouds hanging over once-occupied spaces.
Whether central to the work or hidden in an enclave, references to art history proliferate in many McIntosh oil paintings. He positions the renowned works often kept in the halls of institutions as part of outdoor settings or dilapidated caravans, a subversion that establishes his conceptual framework. In his most recent series, the artist reinvents the “Tower of Babel” as a rugged termite mound and places the Colosseum’s catacombs in a paint-chipped trailer, a vehicle he considers “the perfect symbol of human robustness and fearless desire to explore, an instinct that exists no matter how small or how humble it is.
Some of the paintings shown here are part of McIntosh’s solo exhibition God shaped holes, which runs until October 30 at the James Freeman Gallery in London, and you can explore a larger collection of his works on his site and Instagram.
#art history #oil painting #painting
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