Andrew Mowbray
Another Utopia
On View: November 9th - December 21st, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 9th, 6-8 PM
LaMontagne Gallery is proud to present Andrew Mowbray’s new exhibition: Another Utopia.
The idea for this project started with the artist’s grand vision of creating sustainable modular building blocks grown from molded lagenaria gourds. In recent times these gourds have been used as decorative birdhouses and art, but they have also served as functional vessels for thousands of years by cultures spanning the globe. They are believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants.
Although these architectural gourds have been the main focus of his recent work, Mowbray also begins to scrutinize and question his own relationship to the process and domestic setting in which the work is being created. His critique is employed by using the traditional birdhouse architecture as an embodiment of the nuclear family ideals, as well as Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1973 Splitting, as stepping stone and departure point from traditional notions of domestic architecture and the monumentality of structures.
Similar to many of Matta-Clark’s original works, Mowbray’s modular work is created from inexpensive construction materials and fragments of reclaimed and recycled building materials. However the work differs in its non-monumental scale and also its relationships to gardening, quilting and decorative pattern. These aspects contained within Mowbray’s work bring into question the masculine gestures contained within Matta-Clarks original documentation.
In the end Mowbray’s grown and created forms unintentionally aesthetically resemble objects produced by early modernism. This observation causes him to question the imposition of his own vision of architecture and design on his backyard flora and fauna, and the problematic structures of any utopian idea.
Andrew Mowbray received his BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Sculpture magazine recently featured his work on the cover along with an extensive interview. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and often explores the context of the gallery and contemporary notions and paradigms of masculinity. Andrew is represented by LaMontagne Gallery in Boston. He has received grants from The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The LEF Foundation and the Artists Resource Trust. Andrew is currently Co-Director of Architecture and Visiting Lecturer in Studio Art at Wellesley College. His home and studio are in Boston, Massachusetts.