New Work

“It is easy to view the past with rose colored glasses, seduced by the silver glow of a classic film, the smell of an antique book, or the ghostly imprint of an old photograph. Like the narratives we create, these things serve as distractions, escapes, and often as indictments.

This is where I look when creating paintings and drawings; portraits referential to perceived romantic notions of the past in relation to our own present. With this work I strive for ambiguous narrative; allusions to the sensual, the spiritual, the political, the spectral, and the unknown. There are implications of sinister and enigmatic forces, something beyond the veneer, something truthful, something absurd.” -Brian Abdrew Coate