Brad Gunn

This work is part of Curatorial+Co.'s 2026 group exhibition, 'The Beast In Me'.

Of all the internal mechanisms that drive us, perhaps the most primordial is the beast. We expel the animal, the bodily, the base in favour of the intellect, yet it is the beast that holds what is most irreducibly human—impulses and desires that precede thought: love, rage, care, protection, connection. The very thing we suppress is also the thing that touches what is most vital.

With influences from science fiction, abstract art, and Renaissance sculpture, Brad Gunn's practice reflects his love for figurative forms and supernatural themes.⁠ Focusing on characters and otherworldly themes they present an askew reflection of a known world that feel familiar yet alien.⁠

Says Gunn of this work: 'Vanity Fairgame' presents a hairy figure that embodies various themes of identity politics and social commentary. This work inspired by the 1991 Demi Moore Vanity Fair cover where she is 7 months pregnant discusses the murky politics surrounding the policing of women's body autonomy amongst a global decline in birth rates. The title is a play on the unfortunate nature of opinion."