Austin Alphonse
A Body at Rest, 2025, 180x140 cm., Oil on canvas
I’m not interested in lionizing the worthy or condemning the unworthy. I paint what lives in the middle - shift workers, convicts, soldiers- protagonistic (antagonistic?) figures reminiscent of those who shaped me growing up in a blue-collar, military family. I paint figures that defy moral classification. Figures I am ashamed and proud to admit I see myself in. In exploring this gray area I seek to better understand the world in which we live and ultimately to better understand myself. To propose an alternate vision of masculinity, one that abandons simple binaries in favour of something more fractured, more honest.
My goal is not to offer answers or tidy conclusions. If anything, I want to leave viewers in discomfort, a reflection of the discomfort I see in the world of the men around me. To lay bare the quiet burdens of everyday life in a way that asks the viewer to draw their own conclusions. The work lives in that unresolved space, where nuance, contradiction, and conflict are not to be solved but witnessed.