Artist Statement

The narratives that make up identity are built from ideas and feelings regarding kinship, nostalgia and home. My work meets at the fulcrum of nostalgia and tragedy, what is kin and what is the other. It is at the uncanny balancing point of these paired opposites , that an alchemical process occurs. The resultant of this process is irreducible to its components. It is an irrational hybrid, lacking a clear categorical description. My work explores how the self can be experienced as alien and conversely how the other is a construct of one’s desires and fears.

Nostalgia is the ache to return to a home that perhaps never was or has yet to be. The return home in my work is by way of the Gothic, for there is a malefic inheritance and a hereditary debt owed. There is both the fear and allure of the return to the source. Like a moth to a flame, a determinism that moves us toward a wholly other in the search for salvation.

My work deliberately confuses modes of communication: scientific, photographic, historical, and visionary, that is, depictions of imaginary or mystical states. The combining of seemingly incompatible forms of knowledge is both a metaphor for and an interrogation of the undefined boundaries of what is known.

My process starts with a general idea of the kind of images I want to use for my paintings. They are mythic images that evoke nostalgia, sadness, fear, and the mystical. They are old found images or photos I have taken myself. Multiple images are then used to make my digital collages. As I look for contrast and connections between the images, they tell me their secrets. It is like combining different chemicals to see what kind of reaction takes place. These experiments inform other ideas and images. The digital collage is typically not the end product but forms the model for painting or multimedia work.

I paint because painting is radically subjective. Each brushstroke is an analog recording of the image constructing process. It is the carrier wave of my identity.

Bio

Peter Mengert received his BFA with an emphasis in Drawing and Painting from UNLV in 2010. In 2009 he represented the UNLV Fine Arts Department at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Adelaide, Australia, and co-curated the art exhibition for the festival. He was awarded the College of Fine Arts Convocation for Excellence in Drawing and Painting. After graduating, he had several solo and group shows in Las Vegas including his 2016 solo show, “Ghosts and Beasts” in the Las Vegas City Hall gallery. In 2011 he was chosen to participate in the Zap! 4 Public Art Series, creating artwork for the Cambridge neighborhood. He has worked as a freelance caricature artist for the last 20 years. His paintings, drawings, collages, and mixed media installations explore myth, the uncanny, and the sublime. His illustrations were published in Neon Lit magazine, 2019. He is a nominee for the Dedalus Foundation Award.