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until 31.10. | #4794 ARTatBerlin | DUVE BERLIN presents from 10. September 2025 the exhibition „Bardo“ by the artist Andrew Moncrief.
Andrew Moncrief’s recent body of work represents a distinct evolution in his artistic journey, marked by a shift toward a deeper exploration of formal abstraction and the limits of perception and embodiment.
Anchored in his studies of quantum physics, non-western modes of spirituality and the experiential, his paintings reflect a dynamic sense of bodily unrest, a gesturing outside of the two-dimensional plane and the canvas itself. These works engage with key compositional techniques such as sacred geometry and rabatment which helps to guide the viewer’s perception and understanding of the space within the frame.
In his most recent iteration of this body of work and new painting made for this exhibition, Moncrief turned his attention on the body itself. While elements of abstraction play an important part of the pictorial plane, it is the body that carries the weight of transformation. His paintings push physical and metaphysical boundaries, urging us to look beyond the surface of representation and to reconsider what lies unseen or outside of our known modes of looking. There is a compelling tension between two-dimensionality and the embodied experience, with each piece asking us how a painted surface can contain bodily presence and physicality. Both figurative and abstract, Moncrief’s work navigates this duality, questioning the very boundaries of the frame itself and examining the liminal space between inside and outside interior and exterior and the duality between order and chaos.
Moncrief’s paintings are not just a reflection of his individual thought process; they are an investigation into the “mechanics of things” as he has stated. How does the body cope? How does the human body offer an opportunity for transformation and rebirth? What happens in those moments of clarity and crisis?
The title of this exhibition comes from the concept of the bardo. In Mahayana Buddhism, bardo refers to the “middle state” of consciousness between death and rebirth. There exists the bardo of dreaming and of meditation: in which preparation, clarity and focus come together. The bardo, then, is a place of consciousness-where the mind, unanchored from the mortal body, encounters the nature of reality and comes to a pivotal point of change. On Moncrief’s canvas lies this middle state; bound by a continual state of process within the abstracted canvas.
Through abstraction and formal construction, Moncrief invites the viewer to engage with the artwork in a profound dialogue about transformation and rebirth.
Text: Song Tae Chong, PhD Member, Board of Trustees, Martin Parr Foundation and Professor, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
Opening: Wednesday, 10. September 2025, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Exhibition dates: Wednesday, 10. September to Friday, 31. October 2025
Special opening times during Berlin Art Week: Friday September 12th and Saturday September 13th from 12 to 6 p.m
To the Gallery
Image caption: Andrew Moncrief, *Nexus* 2025, Oil on linen 180cm x 200cm
Exhibition Andrew Moncrief – DUVE BERLIN | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
