PULSE Miami Beach
1-4 December 2016
Vane is proud to announce the gallery’s participation at PULSE Miami Beach art fair, Miami, USA. We will present work by Mark Joshua Epstein.
In his work, Epstein explores a sense of the baroque through the lens of exuberant abstraction. Inherent in the paintings is a kind of dandy-aesthetic, as he investigates modes for thinking about sexuality, uncoupled from its traditional association with corporeal desire. These works play with obfuscation and revealing, while teetering on the edge of taste. Colours are amped up, patterns delivered through the imperfect marks of the artist’s hand.
There is gayness lurking in Epstein’s recent abstract compositions. Unlike say, the hanky code, where a single colour denotes a particular sexual proclivity, his works are meant to be looked at for their combinations of colours – for their discordant colour stories, to borrow a phrase from fashion. He is far less interested in hues or patterns in isolation than he is in these elements forced together – layered, interrupted, obfuscated and otherwise occupying the same spaces. The work says to the viewer, take these elements together, or not at all.
Some passages have a purposeful, almost baroque overwrought quality. Neon is celebrated, often coming through in fields of clumsily rendered pattern. There is a worshipping of the hard-edged but not quite a mastery of it. Things are wrong (and go wrong) on purpose. The works are meant to be funny and self-conscious, winking and teary-eyed all at once. It’s a Sunday night drag show where everyone’s makeup is a little bit smeared and everyone’s voice is a little bit raspy from the weekend’s antics.
The things Epstein makes are inspired by the revered and the crass – by the titans of geometric abstraction and by the cheap plastic tablecloths sold by the yard at dollar stores. In his studio practice there is no distinction between capital ‘A’ art, with its authoritarian stamp, and mass-produced (and mass-consumed) design, with its anonymous creators never getting to claim credit. The work celebrates all of it.
Founded in 2005, PULSE Contemporary Art Fair is an established part of the annual art calendar and is recognized for providing its international community of emerging and established galleries with a dynamic platform for connecting with a global audience. PULSE offers visitors an engaging environment in which to discover and collect the most compelling contemporary art being produced today.
Indian Beach Park
4601 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach
Florida 33140
USA
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