MELANIE’S OFFICE

MARK CRAWFORD | Surface Color S(P)ace

April 23 - May 26, 2023

VIEW EXHIBITION

"In this recent work, I simplified the space and use color and drawing to create straightforward, rhythmic compositional structures. The surfaces of these paintings were built up through repetitive layers of painting to achieve a haptic, physical density in keeping with the paintings’ underlying compositional structure and spatial logic. They are divided into zones of color as structural-spatial units through an intuitive process. They are like units of direct sensation grouped into chromatic, rhythmic spaces to emphasize the inherent ‘thingness’ of the paintings as mute objects and to achieve a sense of rhythmic spatiality and balance within the work.

They are not meant to represent anything outside of themselves but exist only as physical objects with their own innate qualities, such as shape, color, and texture. In short they are asignifying and non-referential blocks of saturated color, or color relationships, organized around the perceptual process without being encumbered by symbolic, poetic or psychological associations. This is to encourage the viewer to focus on the formal qualities of the work and to actively engage in the process of seeing in order to find a more fundamental level of visual experience, in direct connection to themselves existing in the immediate present.

I was born in Chicago, attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I received a BFA in painting, in 1985. I later received an MFA (Yale School of Art) then moved to New York City, was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant and later moved to Brooklyn, where I presently reside." - Mark Crawford