THE PASSENGER

Août Gallery is pleased to invite you to the opening of ‘The Passenger’, a solo exhibition by Andrew Maughan.

The show opens the 23rd of March at Août from 6-9pm.

The Passenger is a solo exhibition by London-based British artist Andrew Maughan.

These paintings are part of Maughan’s ongoing series of works obsessively centred around a male protagonist known as the Great Assassin. The character is inspired by the Zodiac serial killer, the works of Edvard Munch, Philip Guston, Sidney Nolan and films depicting white men operating outside the law.

The Assassin wears a hooded mask made of black hair with two large eyes cut out, an act inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Verfremdungseffekt’, which disrupts the integrity of the canvas and breaks the painting’s ‘fourth wall’. He is threatening yet quiet, caught in moments between action – seen in his car, driving through the rain, smoking a cigarette.

The story of the Zodiac, a man who murdered people, used the media to spread fear, disinformation and increase his own infamy, and then got away with it all, echoes modern day stories of power-hungry white men who abuse their position. An ambiguous figure, moving through strange and vivid landscapes, the Assassin hides in plain sight.