Through Sunday September 14 2007

Duncan Simcoe’s Black Drawings are the result of a long-running conversation about the way large stores or myths play upon and intervene in contemporary experience. In addition to his suburban works Duncan has made drawings in paint about the battle between the descendants of Abraham, using unexpected renderings of boxers, oil gushers, pigs and shopping carts as jarring images to bring his observation that the conflict is mythical in proportion. Perhaps surprisingly for such controversial material the works don’t take a side in the contemporary struggle between Palestinians and Jews, they simply observe that this is an epic that has been happening for centuries.

There’s a stark simplicity to the materials Duncan Simcoe uses to create his works, yet a depth to his images that is simultaneously challenging and moving. He’s concerned with suburban living and the challenge of searching for the divine in the course of our lives – the distance between us and God. The works are religious, but contemporary, and they work effectively to encourage our individual searches for the mystic Christ, always distant, but always personal.