Patrick DeCoste

Brave New World

July 1 – 15
Opening Reception Thursday, July 3, 7 – 10 pm

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Mythologies and identities collide in Patrick DeCoste´s works in Brave New World. Masculinity, spiritual entities, the history of Nova Scotia and Canada are also major themes in DeCoste´s new body of work. The artist portrays himself in the roles of Glooskap, a Mi´kmaq god, but also as mythical part human and part animal beings.  

The idea of male competitiveness is also examined in these paintings. In some of the works in Brave New World, the male figures are often antlered and posed nude as if they were male animals about to fight ritualistically. The irony is the attraction is between the male beings and the fight becomes a form of homoerotic flirtation or challenge.

The larger works produced for Brave New World were painted in Newfoundland at the artist residency at Pouch Cove. The colours and light contained in these paintings are inspired by the physicality of Newfoundland´s land and seascapes. As I view these works, I wonder if the artist was also channeling the lost aboriginal peoples, the Beothuks, eradicated due to 250 years of excessive European greed?

The exhibition will feature the new paintings as well as studio ephemera and objects that have inspired DeCoste. These items are included in Brave New World as a way to portray the thoughts and processes of the artist, and give a creative context to the paintings. The larger paintings will be displayed on the gallery walls, like wallpaper, with smaller works suspended in front to create a layered installation, as they would be in DeCoste´s studio.

Two years ago the artist discovered his Mi´kmaq heritage through genealogy and was inspired by both his European and First Nations heritage. Since the artist did not grow up in Mi´kmaq culture, he chose instead to portray the mythology and history of colonialism of the time when his Acadian ancestors arrived in Nova Scotia and met

his Mi´kmaq ancestors. DeCoste deconstructs the mythology of European colonialism in his portraits by positing himself in many of the paintings, not only as a Mi´kmaq god, but also as one of his human/animal beings. He remixes history and fiction, creating a new history, a Brave New World.

Andrew Harwood 2008