Ian Monroe

Canyon Recreated is a sculptor’s version of landscape painting; an imaginary place where the architecture of the space is literally amplified through the mountains of speakers. Monroe takes the virtue out of painting, replacing paint with collaged materials ranging from paper, vinyl, carpet, and linoleum. Through this construction process Monroe lends a sense of solidity to his image, literally building a space which isn’t there. It’s a way of cheating at image-making: readymade colour fields fill in his hand-drawn pattern, creating a painting without rendering.

Ian Monroe (born New York, 1972) is best known for his large-scale collaged vinyl paintings that create fictional architectural spaces.

One minute obscurity, the next, a ‘name’. Why has the art world gone ballistic over artist Ian Monroe?

Ian Monroe lives and works in London and was included in Edge of the Real, a group painting show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2004