THE WINK & NUDGE: ANDREW MONCRIEF & SEBASTIAN NEEB : @ Saatchi Gallery, (London, UK) Duke of York's HQ

BEERS London is proud to present painter Andrew Moncrief alongside sculptor Sebastian Neeb at the Saatchi Gallery in an exhibition exploring the deconstruction of meaning, materiality, and message. Both artists adopt a wry sensibility to deconstruct the conventions of their chosen subject matter and artistic discipline.

Moncrief, a Canadian based in Berlin, approaches figurative painting as if from the inside out: his "figures," if we can still call them that, are carnal, disembodied, even verging toward the comical. References to Guston, Bacon, and contemporary painters such as Cecily Brown and Jenny Saville flicker throughout. He has created a kind of painterly arena that invites an explosive, reactive approach to traditional figuration. While the body itself may be absent, we are left with what remains when the corpus exits the stage: marginalia, residue, fragments, and other scrap-like clues left behind once the subject (and the painter) has exited the creative space. Just as we might "read between the lines" to piece together implied meaning, Moncrief leaves a roadmap for assembling these fragments - a behind-the-scenes vantage into process... almost as if we are given the raw material and denied access to the finished product. What remains is infinitely possible: a series of anti-portraits that invite infinite readings.

Sebastian Neeb, a German artist who also lives and works in Berlin, is similarly preoccupied with so-called detritus. Just as Moncrief’s paintings shift from attentive realism toward a more volatile, deferential system/language, Neeb finds, shapes, and anchors meaning through the exaltation of cast-off figures and cut-off materials. His “portraits” function as totems of absurdity, in which the artist prioritizes the abject, looking to minor characters or eccentric details from which to extricate a fuller story. Throughout literary history, these minor characters have been reinvigorated and reassessed, from Margaret Atwood's retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope's POV, or Percival Everett's retelling of Huckleberry Finn with James, but rarely are the visual arts able to shift focus in a similar way. But for Neeb, the true heroes are off-kilter, jarring, grotesque, and even a little weird. His mobile statuettes are equal parts seduction and unease, silly and sincere. What we're left with are the cast-off awards for the equally cast-off figures to whom they might belong: an imaginary parade of offbeat characters and their respective awards that would not feel out of place in a Vonnegut novel.

Both Moncrief and Neeb have devised distinct (if idiosyncratic) internal logics that riff off conventional artistic modes. For Moncrief, this manifests as a subversion of figurative tropes; for Neeb, a desire to lampoon a society predicated on spectacle and reward. Each requires sincerity alongside a wry sensibility that both inhabits and unsettles its discipline and cultural context. Perhaps it is no coincidence that both live in Berlin: a city that has historically welcomed the proverbial freaks and geeks. To quote 19th-century composer Franz Von Suppe: "You are crazy, my child, you must go to Berlin!" So... how fortunate for us that these artists - one local and one emigre - have chosen to engage their selective traditions while quietly (or not-so quietly) poking fun at them... a criticality from within, a self-aware dismantling of so-called “higher art” forms. A sort of... "the call is coming from within the house" approach to their artistry.

Above all, both artists challenge how art is meant to behave and what purpose it serves in a world increasingly desensitised by image and repetition. Their shared tendencies (refusing clean answers, balancing looseness with precision, and handling material with deft control) produce a particular kind of viewing experience in which we feel privy to the joke even without access to the setup. The works invite engagement rather than standing outside the gate.

Mark Twain once wrote that “Humour is the saving thing.” In this exhibition, the wink and nudge function as both means and method, sustaining contradiction, instability, vulnerability, and dissonance while resisting closure. Perhaps humour is less the saving thing than the clarifying one: it grants access to otherwise hermetic worlds. Together, the works form a grand, slightly operatic joke, one we are invited to laugh along with, even if we missed the punchline in the first place; we're laughing.

ANDREW MONCRIEF (b. 1987, Vancouver Island, Canada) currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Moncrief completed his BFA in Painting and Drawing at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, in 2013. 

Solo exhibitions include: Bardo, Duve, Berlin, Germany (2025); Moment Point, Gana Art, Seoul, South Korea (2025); Viral Bodies, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, USA (2021); Put on a Happy Face, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, USA (2019); Man Enough, Youn Gallery, Montreal, Canada (2018); Losing Face, Never Apart, Montreal, Canada (2017) and; A Strange Feeling, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, USA (2016). 

Group exhibitions include: The Torment of Matter, Kunst Quartier Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2025); In The Flesh: The Nude in Art, Past and Present, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Canada (2023); Come Out & Play, BEERS London, UK (2022);  Lines in the Snow: Canadian contemporary Drawing, New Art Projects, London (2022); Figuratively Speaking, Am Tacheles curated by Amir Fattal, Berlin, Germany (2021); Natural Habitat, On Center Gallery, Provincetown, USA (2019); Late Summer Group Show; On Center Gallery, Provincetown, USA (2018) and; FLORA, Youn Gallery, Montreal, Canada (2017).

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SEBASTIAN NEEB (b. 1980, Güstrow, Germany) currently lives and works in Berlin. Neeb graduated with a Master's from the University of the Arts in Berlin in 2009.

Solo Exhibitions include: Manipulation Through Entertainment, Ernst Barlach Museum, Güstrow (2025); Geschindel, REITER Gallery, Berlin (2023); Dilettante Kartoffeln wetteifern um die Gunst des Vaters, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg (2020); Waving Back When Being Waved At, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg (2019); and We Just Need Another Hero, Ignore the Circumstances, REITER Gallery, Berlin (2019).

Group Exhibitions include: The Big Fatigue, Schlachthof, Berlin (2025);  Halt,
Galerie Leuenroth, Frankfurt (2024);  Kreatur, REITER Gallery, Berlin (2022;) Gilded, Museum Château de Nyon, Nyon, Schweiz (2022);  A Curious Imprint of Reality w. Marion Fink, BEERS London, London (2019) and Contemporary Visions VII, BEERS London, London (2017).