Greg Mencoff
Greg Mencoff practices in the area of drawing, sculpture, and sound. He has been teaching drawing at SMFA at Tufts for 28 years and is also faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design since 2007. Much of his work is influenced by the process strategies of Minimalist music theory and repetitive systems. He has been awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship for Sculpture ( 2009, 2005), SMFA Traveling Fellowship (2010), SMFA Fifth Year Traveling Scholar (1983), and Artist Resource Grant (2007). His exhibitions include solo shows at Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston ('07, '06, '05, and '03), and select group exhibitions including Bradley Print and Drawing Exhibition, Peoria, Ill (2013), New England Biennial, Brattleboro Museum, VT. (2012), Boston Drawing Project, Boston (2011), and Miami Project, Miami, FL (2012). His work is held in private collections, including the Graham Gund Collection and is represented in Boston by Carroll and Sons Gallery, where his exhibition “Chasing Artifacts” was awarded best Boston gallery show in 2014.
Greg received a BFA from Tufts University/SMFA (1981), and completed the SMFA Fifth Year Program in 1983. He was founder and operator of Boston Frame from 1987-2006, a woodworking studio in Boston, collaborating with artists, designers, and the film industry: ( Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Orion Pictures, Castle Rock Pictures, Alt Productions, and Jasmine Productions), and was founder and director of Annex Gallery in Boston from 2002-2006.
The premise of the sculptures focuses on the architecture of things—how and why objects originate, the process of construction, and what is their role, or utility, if any. My interest lies in the history and interpreted relevance of built forms. For some of the sculptures, it is my intent to suggest function without any specific purpose. With others it is to propose an object as nothing more than what it is, without any particular association, presenting a form that is self-referencing.
The work also draws influence from my active involvement with electronic music, primarily through the practice and study of sonic behavior and recurrent progressions associated with Minimalist process music theory. Repetition and their variances have become dominant principles associated with the current sculptural work.