Tuesday, 19 March 2013

Kent Monkman

 Kent Monkman is a multidisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media, including  film/video, performance, painting and installation. Monkman has exhibited widely within Canada, and is well represented in numerous private and public collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 
His paintings have a lot of focus on the view, always seeming to have big skies and clouds, filled with nature and a rather peaceful setting. They are rather relaxing to to look at, showing a lot of bright primative colours, and with such a big and open piece of scenery it all connotes freedom and peace.
 
 
 
 
His installation art is in some ways like his paintings, they are one again filled with nature and big open views, only they tend to focus more on the character within the piece. The sculpture created in this has the opposite effect to the paintings, it has an expressionless face, and with it being all white it once again shows how lacks emotion, reflecting a negative feeling without any peacful colours.
Still from Group of Seven Inches "Group of Seven Inches is a naughty and playful musing on the relationship between artist and model"
    The films Monkman creates are a little like his paintings, and partially like his installation pieces. They show the same peace and focus, but with a figure involved at the same time. The film has been made sepia to state it's old fashioned style, and with it including a Native American it suggests freedom and peace once again, quite the opposite to the figure in the installation art. I think it is a very appealing piece, it makes me feel positive to look at it, it's a powerful image that expresses freedom, power and peace, a lot like the painting.
    The disciplines that Monkman works with seem to flow into each other, they all have similaries that roll off into the next piece he creates, some however are represented diffrently, they can show either a negative or positive effect but they still have something that connects each of them together.

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