Stuart Shave Modern Art is pleased to present American sculptor Matthew Monahan in his first solo show in the UK.

Monahan’s figurative characters are both nurtured and threatened in their process of creation and it is by the persistence of their own will that their existence is assured and maintained.

The disparate figures that form Monahan’s sculpted legion are constructed from materials that take no initial anthropomorphic form. Glued, cut, pulled, nailed, burned or moulded into shape from raw building materials, the figures take on their final body with an energy of resistance. Made as intricate composites from the tropes and stereotypes of early figurative sculpture, Monahan adopts the sensibilities of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; ‘cobbling’1 together creatures that are the artist's deliberately contorted reflection of such art historical burden.!

Monahan’s chosen materials bring with them a tangibly more contemporary reflection of the built world surrounding us. Layers of patinas are applied to the yellowing and green expanding foam that forms the inner constitution of the figures. This rich fleshy surface is then adorned with individualised intensity in glitter, pearlescent paint and gold leaf. Created and encouraged as personalities in their own right, Monahan works with each character as they begin their fight to being, slowly metamorphosising into their own defined personas.

In contrast to the more traditional, physically structured figures, Monahan entwines large-scale tonal drawings of faces, which are folded - contorting their expressions and then placed within glass plinths. These faces, encased and plaintively staring also become support structures that prop up and carry other characters. Piled one on top of the other, Monahan’s sculptures combine to create a totemic menagerie of chimeric characters.

Matthew Monahan (b.1972) lives and works in Los Angeles and was included in the Whitney Biennial, 2006. Monahan will also have a solo show at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007.