Many Modest Fires presents an exhibition of new paintings by American painter, Mark Yang, at No. 9 Cork Street, London, on see until eventually November 26thThe exhibition, Lucid Dream, signifies the artist’s 1st European exhibition, and the initially exhibition of his operates on paper. The artist was born in Seoul, South Korea. He grew up in California, and life and is effective in New York.
Mark Yang paints the determine but isn’t interested in developing narratives. As a substitute, he works by using the human entire body as a conceptual leaping-off point to discover how we entwine, interact with, and read other human beings.
Yang renders his sorts in an idiosyncratic, angular, graphically stylized manner, dealing with body areas as sculptures to be painted. His palette is composed of dim purples, acid greens, dazzling pops of yellow, orange, and red. He makes use of fluid gestures and undulating strains to generate entangled, mysterious, asymmetric compositions that don’t promptly give absent the plot.
Often, the viewer cannot discern which limb is linked to which entire body. Gratuitous legs wrap around a single butt when several arms writhe in a tangled mass. These nonsensical knots converse volumes through model, entire body language, and other visual codes exceptional to human beings.
Yang usually avoids depicting faces in favor of ambiguity and a sluggish visual browse. When faces do look, they usually rest… or rest eternally. Yang paints what he knows, applying himself as a quotidian design. His figures – male, female, and gender neutral – serve as mental clay for their maker, not sexualized amusements. In truth, he exaggerates male nipples, turning them into official aspects, which resemble eyes and “look” back again at the viewer.
For his Cork Street exhibition, Yang grapples with several new themes. He considers the magical process of making new existence, in Yeondu and Lucid Aspiration. He carries on deciphering canonical will work these kinds of as Mantegna’s Lamentation of Christ, Michelangelo’s Battle of the Centaurs and Bartolini’s The Demidoff Table. Finally, in Anterior (evening) and Posterior (night time), Yang explores the spectre of the pandemic, as well as other modern entire world activities that have brought us illustrations or photos further than comprehension.
System language can be ambiguous, as can individuals. At the conclude of the working day, Yang’s paintings explore the complexities and problems of being familiar with other human beings – a conceptual puzzle most of us confront on a each day basis.