Mike Gough

Mike Gough was born in Corner Brook,
Newfoundland, in 1985. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir Wilfred
Grenfell College in 2007 and in 2010 graduated from Centrail Saint Martins
College of Art and Design in London with a Masters of Fine Arts.

Gough's interest in the elusive
quality of memory has always been an invariable interest in his art practice.
Rooted in memories of his upbringing in Newfoundland, his paintings are
autobiographical but carry universal narratives. In the absence of detail, there
is an opportunity for one's own memories to develop. An expansive solitude and
sense of isolation is met with a universal feeling of what it means to belong.

At its core, his
practice explores how our relationship with the natural world connects and
defines us. Working in mixed media, he endeavors to create familiar meditative
spaces that exhibit a personal journey, but simultaneously invite the viewer to
insert themselves in the narrative. These paintings partially stem from a fear
of memory loss as a result of experiences with Alzheimer's in his family. Not
only does the painting process exercise his memory, but the paintings
themselves act as records of his experience becoming a blend of reality and
idealism. They are not painted from photographs; the places are not precisely
rendered and the experiences are not accurately told, but they are his
authentic recollection of them. The intent of his work is to create a patchwork
map of memories as a guide back to the authenticity of human feeling. 

Gough has exhibited
both nationally and internationally in over 40 exhibitions and his work appears
in private, corporate, and public collections in England and Canada, including
The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, Humber College, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College,
The City of St. John's, and Global Affairs Canada.

He was the winner of
the Excellence in Visual Arts (EVA) People's Choice Award in 2015 and was
shortlisted for the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Emercing Artist of
the Year in 2013. He has been the recipient of numerous Arts and Letters Awards
and was selected for both the Elbow Room Residency Program (2013) at the Rooms
Provincial Art Gallery and the Artist in Residence (2016) at 2 Rooms
Contemporary Art Projects in Duntara, Newfoundland.