A commitment to ritual is at the centre of Kadar Brock’s practice. Often working on multiple canvases at once, Brock creates dynamic, vibrant abstractions that are born from an arduous process of painting, scraping, priming, sanding, and painting again. It is a repeated action of creation and erasure, one that layers multiple compositions atop one another and embodies the physical, psychological, and pictorial records of their making.
Retaining a commitment to his established process, Brock layers paintings about personal memory, family history, and iconographies of New Age religion, alongside representations of masculinities found in the characters of American and Japanese comic books and film.
For Brock, it is important that each layer of the work is rendered completely, paying homage to the imagery it considers before it is deconstructed. The original image functions as a symbolic entity, only at times peeking through the final surface of the work by way of colour, shape, or shadow. In this sense, each painting is a memorial, full of ghostly referents. Yet, this assemblage is also an act of release, fusing multiple signifiers into one renewed object. The physical and emotional process of creation, often taking place over many years, enables a reverse archaeology of the self and renders a delicate balance between body, memory, and psychology. The titles of the work name the layers underneath, encouraging the viewer to take a slower, closer look.
Kadar Brock (b. 1980) is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Art. He has exhibited internationally, with solo shows at Vigo Gallery, London; Patron Gallery, Chicago; Gallery Diet, Miami; Thierry Goldberg, NYC; Almine Rech, Brussels and the Hole, NYC as well as group shows at Praz-Delavallade, Paris; Brand New Gallery, Milan; Saamlung, Hong Kong; Horton Gallery, Berlin; and Sperone Westwater, NYC.