Ian Monroe (born New York, 1972) is best known for his large-scale collaged vinyl paintings that create fictional architectural spaces. During the past two years they have been shown to public acclaim at the Whitechapel, Saatchi and Haunch of Venison galleries in London. This is his first major exhibition outside the UK, and presents a substantial body of new work.

Monroe’s works investigate the structures and infrastructures that underpin the built environment. In many of his paintings, the collaged vinyl forms hold out the promise of a beautiful, pristine and ordered environment that has been successfully planned by architects and facilitated by technology. However, the works have a false perspective and the inclusion of vinyl materials and bright patches of colour draws attention to the surface of the work, and disturbs the illusion of an inhabitable space. Indeed, all the works are devoid of events or inhabitants and in Monroe’s words, ‘We are all nomads of the lobby, the computer game, the banking system; locations through which both ourselves and our production pass, but systems whose success depends on us leaving no mark, no disturbance’. Monroe reveals that the architects’ and scientists’ visions of order and progress will give rise to post-human environments.

In this new exhibition of seven large scale paintings, Monroe focuses in particular on the invisible infrastructures that theories of physics and mathematics have made known to us, and the new materials and technologies that they have allowed us to invent. One for Quintus Teal (2005), (detail illustrated above) is based on a novel where a house is built in the shape of a Tesseract, a four dimensional object that exists only in mathematical theory. The purchasers enter the house, but as the shape is not designed for humans, they cannot navigate its spaces and are trapped in an alien world. The exhibition also presents two new large-scale text-based sculptures. The sculptures are in the shape of simple architectural forms: a wall and a nave. The works are made from paper cut in the shape of texts that are, on first view, imperceptible. The text’s hidden presence in even such simple forms draws the viewers attention to the complex hidden forces present in any room, such as electrical signals and the forces in architectural elements.
Ian Monroe lives and works in London. His work is included in many collections in Europe and America, and will be presented as part of The Triumph of Painting series of exhibitions at the Saatchi gallery in 2006. The Haunch exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with a text by curator, Tom Morton.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by Christina Vegh, Director of the Kunstverein, Bonn.
For further press information and images please contact: Calum Sutton call: +44 (0)20 7495 5050, or Email: calum@haunchofvenison.com