EXHIBITION: HANDED-DOWN, THE ULSTER HABITAT RESTORE, JUL 17th - AUG 10, 2024

Grace (after Eric Enstrom), 1918/2024

From July 17th through August 13th, a selection of new paintings by Mark Mann entitled Handed-Down, will be on view at The Ulster Habitat ReStore as part of its ongoing artist series established in 2023. The artist’s unique versions of prints and graphic designs of the late 20th century are visually altered to blend the anachronistic and humanistic qualities of modern life; a time in which we strive to process the present and retain an ever-growing quantity of our past. Humbly following in the footsteps of Claes Oldenburg’s 1961 pop art installation, The Store, the exhibition highlights the shifting line between art and commodity and sidestepping the practice of selling art through a gallery system.

Through a mise-en-scène approach to installation, Mann is intent on creating an altered reality where the environment and the art are intrinsically symbiotic. The mediums of print and painting blur and their physical condition is deceptively compromised by artificial damage like UV fading, stains and mold. This is most evident in Ansel Adams, Moonrise in the UV Spectrum, where the effect of intense sunlight from a window exposure has apparently faded horizontal bands across the picture’s surface, but in actuality they are merely lines painted by the artist’s hand. And all the while, the image of a New Mexican landscape is juxtaposed with the silhouettes of houseplants resting on the sill below.

In keeping with the Restore’s commitment to reuse, repurpose and recycle, the artworks on display are inspired by objects one would discover browsing their local thrift store, from the ubiquitous images of mass-production to more obscure keep-sakes of a personal nature. Not unlike a modern-day Rankin/Bass Island of Misfit Toys, these cultural artifacts have been both treasured and discarded, but emerge once again to be rediscovered and revalued by another… and the cycle repeats.

Mark Mann (b. 1970 in Oklahoma City, OK. Currently resides in Shokan, NY). He received a BFA from the College of Santa Fe (Santa Fe, New Mexico) and has exhibited in numerous US and European galleries and art fairs. His artworks have been collected by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Norton Museum of Art, and the Sir Elton John Collection. Most recently, he has exhibited paintings and sculptural projects with the Owen James Gallery and Calico NY.

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CALICO NY RISOGRAPH RELEASE

I am pleased to officially announce the release of my Risograph print produced by @calico.ny and printed by @authorizedtowork  It’s available via the Calico website or at the gallery. Link in bio. 

Calico Editions no. 11, “Abandoned City (phone booth)” 2023, 2-color Risograph print, On bright white 65lb, Signed and numbered, Ed. of 50

This not only represents my first Risograph ever, but is the first drawing created in the Catskills after residing in New York City for over the past twenty years. It is both a love letter and hate mail to the city that has giving me so much and that I cannot quit. On that note, I think it was the New York Gaming Commission that once said “You can’t win if you don’t play.” 

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SOUVENIR EXHIBITION AT OWEN JAMES GALLERY, SEPTEMBER 16 - OCTOBER 23, 2021

Landmark (NANA Y JR), 2021 acrylic on panel 10 x 22”

Mark Mann is a surveyor of “Americanism.”

The fabled American Dream was long relabeled a myth. And yet, it continues to be pulled by two opposing forces: a myoptic nostalgia versus an angry, factual calibration of realities. In his images, Mann navigates the surrealism of the banal to peek behind the curtain of our past, and to come to terms with our present.

The artist’s new exhibition Souvenir serves as an overview of Mann’s various bodies of work over the last two decades. While they vary in media, they are all aspects of a larger, shared narrative of investigation. The earliest works are digital photo-collages, based on found Mid-Century postcards of holiday travel and resorts. These parks, motor lodges, diners and rest spots herald a bygone era when the country was inward-looking and self-satisfied. In manipulating and reorganizing the images, Mann inserts a quiet sense of discomfort, even dread. These are not happy places. We see rooms that are eerily silent, empty swimming pools, lonely figures hiding from the light, and from us.

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Red Shift Series: New Limited-Edition Silkscreen Print Available

Mark Mann Studio is pleased to announce the release of a limited-edition silkscreen print from the series Red Shift drawings. ‘Couple with Fiesta Skull, 2019/21 presages our collective challenges in 2020. It is a mundane yet darkly humorous take on mortality and continues my fascination with the intersection of crisis and play that occurs throughout one’s life. This series is influenced by the “red shifting” of photographic prints that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s due to the instability of the paper and dyes used in some print processes at the time. With that in mind, I use a combination of odd scenes and physical struggles to capture a side of the American character experiencing the effects of a shifting environment— both physical and cultural.

All prints are in an edition of 30, 16 x 20” paper size printed as 3 color silkscreen on Coventry Rag by Leslie Diuguid / Du-Good Press, Brooklyn.

Details to Purchase

Exhibition: Chlorine Tidal Wave, Field Projects August 8th - 31st, 2019

Woman with Giant Shark, 2019

Field Projects is pleased to present Chlorine Tidal Wave curated by Tess Sol Schwab featuring works sourced from the Summer Open Call by: Corinne Beardsley, Dorielle Caimi, Alexander Churchill, Alexandra Evans, Mark Mann, Seren Morey, Chris Musina, Stacey Rowe, Benjamin Siekierski.

The exhibition takes summer entertainment news as its starting point- the endless coverage of “Chance the Snapper” (the alligator found in a Chicago park), shark attacks, and deadly flesh-eating bacteria in our beaches. These sensationalized stories aim to both delight and terrify. Using the same language as scary movies, the headlines ask, “Is it safe to go in the water?” and frame the deadly beast as an enemy to be vanquished. We cheer when the gator is removed from the pool and pat ourselves on the back that it is rehomed in an animal sanctuary. With the segment over we can move on to other pressing issues- like who is the next contestant voted off Love Island. Yet, the real looming presence of environmental destruction remains.

The artists in Chlorine Tidal Wave tackle this undercurrent of unease with humor and beauty. Stacey Rowe’s Florida Man defends himself with a plunger against reptiles emerging from his toilet. Jacob Banholzer, Ben Siekierski, Mark Mann, and Chris Musina depict sharks and alligators finding new homes in swimming pools and within our gallery walls. Alexandra Evans and Dorielle Caimi’s mermaids look morose or raging mad. In Alexander Churchill’s pool the water is gone and our domestic animals have gone feral, while Seren Morey’s biomorphic works and Corrine Beardsley’s fossils point to possible grim futures. Together, the works in the show call for a longer look at the changes to our climate, the effects on nature, and an acknowledgment of a much bigger danger than just a gator in a swimming pool.

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Exhibition: Tempus Projects, Dark and Full of Flowers May 18-June 29

Old Glory, 2018

‘DARK AND FULL OF FLOWERS: Secundo Sunistra’ is a multi-media, juried art exhibition focusing on the theme of the sinister side of the Sunshine State. The word ‘sunistra’ is a portmanteau of "sunshine" and the Latin word "sinistra" and reflects the often idyllic/nightmarish dichotomy Florida embodies in its natural, social and political climates. This exhibition will open on Saturday, May 18 from 7-9pm and run through June 29, 2019. Artists featured: Accepted

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