Selected Artwork > [I Don't Want To Just] Paint The People, Solo Exhibition, Galerie UQO, Fall 2026

I Don't Want To Just] Paint The People, Galerie UQO, Gatineau, QC, September 9-October 10, 2026. Curated by Marie-Hélène Leblanc

Curatorial Statement:

For the past twenty years, Andrew Morrow has explored diverse themes in his painting and drawing, ranging from Western historical painting to contemporary visual culture, delving into questions of gender, sexuality, shame, reconciliation, and apocalypse. Most recently, he has also focused on re-evaluating the relationship between the live model and the artist. What the artist defines as Relationally Based Studio Practice , where studio work is rooted in a relational approach with the models posing, constitutes the common thread running through the works gathered in this exhibition. All individuals acting as models for the artist are considered not merely as subjects to be drawn or painted, but rather as active interlocutors whose subjectivity is highlighted. Taking shape during studio sessions, the works presented share a common thread: they underscore how Morrow transforms the studio into a meeting place where a form of social connection is established. His drawings and paintings bear witness to and trace the exchanges he maintains with his models. Through several bodies of work unveiled for the first time in a single context, the exhibition reveals the artist's working methodology, which allows him to ground his often isolated studio practice in social connections. 

The works presented address both the medium itself (here, painting and drawing), and an indeterminate relationship with representation, as well as the models depicted. Often synthesizing multiple and sometimes multiplied figures, objects, abstract areas, and personal textual notes, Morrow's current practice includes provisional and gestural works created in real time during posing sessions. Added to this body of work are more extensively developed and more finished pieces, created alone in the studio following the posing sessions. In this more specific context, beyond this visual complexity, a more immaterial and imperceptible perspective emerges, resulting from the relational process and the preparatory method that involves the other . This desire to highlight the importance of this approach stems from a series of studio visits where, each time, the curator sat on the very same couch used for the posing sessions. The title, [I Don't Want To Just] Paint The People , expresses precisely this need for the artist not to limit himself to painting individuals, but to foster exchanges and privileged moments, thus creating a constellation of interrelated models.

In the weeks leading up to the exhibition, the UQO Gallery became a workspace for the artist during a residency. While the public was invited to pose during sessions that allowed for the development of new sketches, and even new finished works, the gallery (as well as its team and its audience) became, in a way, a model in itself. Through this process, the artist not only reflects on the space where the artwork is produced, but also synthesizes its traces in future works. He subtly questions the role of the white cube as a space for experimentation, as well as the potential for gathering and uniting that the gallery can generate through encounters with people who pose to become subjects of the artworks.