Andrew Maughan Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, b. 1987

Maughan interrogates fear as a tool of politics and history’s long cycle of violence, power and erasure. 

His work skewers the most pressing issues of our times, in particular, the rise of neoliberalism: an ideology promoting free markets, deregulation and individualism. The results: environmental crisis, escalating economic inequality, the erosion of public infrastructure and community and growing authoritarianism are documented in paintings whose source material is often the billionaire owned media.

Whereas earlier paintings centred around a hooded protagonist, whose looming presence drew on a lineage of masked figures populating film noir, cartoons and the paintings of Sidney Nolan and Philip Guston, Maughan’s latest work shows us that the mask is off. In a world dominated by fake news and sloganeering, the objectives of those jostling for political power are often hiding in plain sight.

Maughan’s mark making speaks of the flattened shapes of the screen through which our news and opinions are filtered and the blurred line between citizen and consumer. Each painting is a flashpoint from crises around the world, ubiquitous, brutal, one more image lost in an endless scroll. And yet, by choosing these images as the basis for his work, Maughan suggests that the power of painting in times of image and crisis saturation, is to reactivate the senses, to disrupt the narrative that there is no alternative and to create new stories.

Exhibitions include 'CAVE', Liverpool Biennial, UK, 'Riff/t, BALTIC39, Newcastle, UK, 'North', IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK and the RA Schools Show, Royal Academy of Arts, UK. Exhibitions include 'CAVE', Liverpool Biennial, UK, 'Riff/t, BALTIC39, Newcastle, UK, 'North', IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK and the RA Schools Show, Royal Academy of Arts, UK.