Bio

Laurence Antony is a Canadian contemporary painter whose style morphs to the realities and subjects depicted in portraiture and landscape painting. From an early age, he drew influence from Japanese and European illustration. While studying painting and drawing at Concordia University and at the school of graphic design St-Luc (ERG) in Belgium, his attention shifted to contemporary painting and larger format installations. After working in several renowned institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal, the PHI Foundation and the PHI centre, he traveled to Tokyo for a year where he rediscovered his love for painting and technology by visiting exhibits of Japanese artists. Using 3D design, found photos, and digital paintings as source material, Antony creates images that combine multiple perspectives into unique and surreal narratives.

Artist Statement

I am fascinated by the realities each one of us experience as we own and cultivate singular and collective identities. The makeshift of these identities are used as a basis for my work and I celebrate their presence through figurative means. In constant flux between experimentation and representative subject matter, I construct new realities that bridge the gap between illusion and truth. In these new realities, figures and representative elements challenge the viewer to decrypt the events taking place. These scenes are often invaded by non-representative and painterly aspects that disturb the matrix of reality in order to reframe it as my own. By doing so, I build narratives that are both familiar and elusive to the viewer.

Oil and digital painting are the main mediums I use. Although they may seem to accomplish different goals, they represent the same process for me. In fact, I often use digital painting as part of my experimentation process that precedes oil works. However, it can also be the end product as it is representative of the artificial and the illusionary I search for.

In oil painting, I seek what can’t be achieved with its digital counterpart: the unpredictable. I start with a thin layer in which I try to get most of the painting work done while the paint is still fresh. I find this increases the possibilities of unpredictable events and it also produces a pleasant painterly aesthetic. This first layer is given the time to dry and is then followed with several glazes and raw paint layers, sometimes mixing both at once, again encouraging unknown outcomes. This almost continuously fleeting state of paint distorts a reality that could otherwise be a photograph. The medium is ideal for constructing and deconstructing realities.
www.laurenceantony.com
@laurenceantony