Author Archives: Mark

Mark Moore Fine Art is pleased to announce an exclusive ARTSY online exhibition of award-winning sculptor Meghan Smythe titled “Flesh For Fantasy”, on view July 10 – August 13, 2017.

This presentation on recent work can be view now at the following link:

https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-meghan-smythe-flesh-for-fantasy

Out of each our 5790projects group shows that focuses solely on debuting and showcasing young emerging talent from Los Angeles each year, a selection committee nominates one featured artist to be considered for the annually-awarded Moore Family Trust Grant. This prize consists of a cash prize and a gallery exhibition. After much deliberation, the committee has elected to award the 5790projects Award 2014 Prize to sculpture artist, MEGHAN SMYTHE.

Using a traditional sculptural format (the monument), Meghan Smythe captures contradicting extremes within human gesture: intimacy and brutality, beauty and ugliness, or the lewd and tender. In her attempt to achieve an “elegant vulgarity,” she encapsulates moments that define our mortality in unanticipated ways; oftentimes toeing the delicate line between erotic and macabre tendencies that give way to life, and ultimately death. Glass, ceramic, and concrete are woven together in an elaborate, orgy-like web of body parts and organic artifacts, as if suddenly cast with Pompeii-like circumstances. Like excavated antiquities or fossils, Smythe’s ceramic compositions allude to the cyclical nature of civilization – a dramedy in which all of the players are subject to conquest and demise.

As art critic Leah Ollman stated in her review of her 2015 exhibition at the Mark Moore Gallery in the Los Angeles Times, “Limbs are entwined, tongues extended. Clay is rarely, if ever, this carnal. Some of the skin is mannequin-smooth but veined with cracks. Some seeps a pink foam or a pale fecal flood. Erotic pleasure plays a part here, but is only one of many competing charges.”

“Throughout this, and Smythe’s other works, there is a violent fragmentation that zigzags between sexual fantasy and deathly dismemberment. With its human shipwreck of compromised flesh, “Young Unbecoming” brings to mind Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa,” and exudes comparable, palpable urgency.”

“Smythe is a sculptor of struggle. Primal forces contend in the work, as do various aesthetic and formal dispositions. The sobriety of the relic is countered by the whimsy of glass and resin follies. Figures pallid and cadaverous lie upon a surface oozing with puddles in the happy hues of Easter eggs.”

“The friction between generation and decay, elegance and entropy, is what makes Smythe’s work so alive and also so tough to digest. It doesn’t go down easy, or at all. Stubborn, sensual, visceral — it sticks.”

Mehgan Smythe (b. 1984, Kingston, ON) received her MFA from the Alfred University School of Art and Design (NY). Her work has been shown at the Arizona State University Art Museum (AZ) and the Gardiner Museum, Toronto (ON). She was the Visiting Artist in Residence at California State University, Long Beach (CA) from 2012-2014, where she continues to teach Ceramic Arts. The artist lives and works in Long Beach, CA.

Available works by Meghan Smythe can be found on the Mark Moore Fine Art ARTSY website at:

https://www.artsy.net/mark-moore-gallery/artist/meghan-smythe

All work is available subject to prior sale and prices are subject to change without notice. All taxes, tariffs, shipping and/or viewing expenses, if any, would be additional.

I do hope this work is of interest. Please let me know if you have any questions.

#markmoorefineart #meghansmythe

Assistant Professor of Ceramics Linda Swanson looks at the work of Meghan Smythe in the recent major exhibition titled “Épisode” – the second Virginia McClure Ceramics Biennale at the McClure Gallery in Montreal.

You can read this essay at the following link now:

https://www.artsy.net/mark-moore-gallery/article/mark-moore-fine-art-linda-swanson-work-meghan-smythe

The exhibition entitled “Épisode” features four artists whose works speak not only to excellence and innovation in ceramics, but to its relevance as a discipline that allows for a specifically corporeal, embodied articulation of contemporary human experience

“The ceramics scene in Canada is developing rapidly alongside resurging interest in materiality in the arts,” says Swanson. “These exhibitions showcase what is happening in Canada and internationally and brings these exciting developments in the contemporary ceramics scene to Quebec for the first time.”

Swanson’s choice of artists — Phoebe Cummings (Stafford, U.K.), Benjamin DeMott (Chicago, U.S.), Janet Macpherson (Toronto, Canada) and Meghan Smythe (Los Angeles, U.S.) — has resulted in an inspiring, materially seductive exhibition. Each artist recognizes the historical heritage of ceramics, yet offers a highly original and imaginatively provocative vision.

“The exhibition is deceptively clear. The complexity of the materials in play and the issues involved slowly unfolds to you. As you walk in, the first piece is made of raw clay, it’s extremely fragile and seems to suggest ideas about our own mortality,” says Swanson.

“Épisode” is the second of five biennales taking place between 2014 and 2022.

#markmoorefineart #meghansmythe

David Klamen (American, b.1961) is a contemporary painter whose work grows in conjunction with his interest in philosophy and scholarship, centralized around the questions,”How do I know what I know?” and “How do I know myself?” Klamen paints figuratively and abstractly, sometimes combining the two by incorporating geometric lines or patterns atop his high finished landscapes. Says Richard Gray Gallery, “His current paintings test epistemological strategies as diverse as OP Art (and its implication that knowledge may be a purely retinal experience), empiricism (the idea that the sole source of knowledge is direct quantifiable experience), introspection, and others. In this investigation, Klamen plays with the history of art, utilizing modern and pre-modern conventions as metaphors for our communal search for meaning.”

Klamen earned his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts at the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana in 1983 and his Master’s of Fine Arts in Painting at the School of the Art Institute in 1985. He is currently is a Professor of Fine Arts at Indiana University Northwest. Klamen is represented in the following public collections: the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (CA), the Museum of Contemporary Art (IL), the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), the Chazen Museum of Art (WI), and National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea.

This special presentation can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-david-klamen-multifarious-paintings

Please find a link attached for you our most recent on-line catalog on the work of DAVID KLAMEN as part of our ongoing STATEMENTS Series of publications. Please download it and enjoy it compliments of MMFA at:

http://www.markmoorefineart.com/attachment/en/581c5e0c84184e51358b4568/Press/581c5ead84184e51358b8134

#markmoorefineart

#davidklamen

Feodor Voronov: “Rainbow of Chaos” On View Now

Mark Moore Fine Art is thrilled to announce “Rainbow of Chaos”, a presentation of recent work by artist, Feodor Voronov. This exclusive online ARTSY exhibition will be an exploration into Voronov’s manipulation of “operative formalism,” and engagement with language.

View this presentation of paintings and works on paper by Voronov now at: 

https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-feodor-voronov-rainbow-of-chaos

#markmoorefineart

#feodorvoronov

Mark Moore Fine Art presents “Reception“, an exclusive online ARTSY exhibition from July 03, 2017 – August 06, 2017 by interdisciplinary artist Stephanie Washburn, including photographs, collages and drawings. Washburn continues her exploration of the interface of material and digital surfaces as well as the persistent relevance of human touch in the construction of pictorial space.

You can preview this presentation now at the following link:

https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-stephanie-washburn-reception

#markmoorefineart #stephaniewashburn

Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to announce the release of a new Yoram Wolberger  catalog focused on his TOY SOLDIER Series works. In addition, the artist has just released a new piece from this series of trademark oversized fiberglass sculptures.

Much like the (now sold-out) “Cowboy and Indian” series and the “Trophy” series of sculpture works, Wolberger’s new “Toy Soldiers” strike a chord for nostalgic Americana and pop culture. Information and images of this new body of work can be found in this new catalog.

Please find below the link to a new online catalog that MMFA has just released today on this series of works available for free download now:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m0ep1b2gn3a3m5v/YWolberger_Soldiers.2017%C2%A9..pdf?dl=0

#markmoorefineart #yoramwolberger

Mark Moore Fine Art presents “Reception”, an exclusive online ARTSY exhibition from July 03, 2017 – August 06, 2017 by interdisciplinary artist Stephanie Washburn, including photographs, collages and drawings. Washburn continues her exploration of the interface of material and digital surfaces as well as the persistent relevance of human touch in the construction of pictorial space.

The “Reception” series of digital photographs, was composed by staging everyday materials against screen imagery from film, advertising, surveillance footage and the Internet. Washburn works from a screen placed on the floor like the flatbed plane of an abstract canvas and subtly, but also almost violently, alters the implications of the source imagery. The backgrounds, often eerily empty landscapes, are used to set the scene in their original context. However, Washburn diverts those narratives to her own outcomes through the use of materials such as hair, wool, bubble wrap, bottle mouths and burning embers. The resulting photographs subvert the disembodied experience of watching a screen, and ultimately return us to its surface as an unlikely point of contact and physical orientation. Teasing out tensions between constructed and straight photography, the images are clearly theatrical but also present evidence of the ambiguity of place and presence in an increasingly virtual world. Washburn also debuts a related series of collages and assemblages, “Here About.”

The work began in response to a group of found vintage silver gelatin prints. Washburn’s cuts, piercings and sculptural additions layer the prints with a myriad of histories beyond their own and question the authority of the photograph to capture a particular moment. “Reception” – as with the later series “Telltale” – utilized orphaned materials, ranging from fur to tennis balls, are aggressively detached from their original function and replaced by an animate, almost totemic, and at times uncanny presence. Washburn concludes with two drawings on vellum paper from her series “Walking Back the Cat,” which again refer to screen imagery in a decidedly performative way. Reiterating the importance of touch, the drawings show her hand’s attempt to make sense of the spiraling catastrophe depicted in several looped sequences from the film Earthquake about the end of Los Angeles. The results, delicate but dogged, wrest an apocalyptic spectacle onto an intimate surface layered with the slower time of a real body in action.

Washburn received her MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work has been exhibited at The University Art Museum (CA), The Palms Bar (CA), Atkinson Gallery (CA), Santa Barbara Museum of Art (CA), Eagle Rock Center for the Arts (CA), Los Angeles Municipal Gallery (CA) and Davidson Art Center (CT). Washburn’s photographs have been acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA) and Sweeney Art Gallery at the University of California, Riverside (CA). She currently lives and works between Ojai and Los Angeles.

You can preview this presentation now at the following link:

https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-stephanie-washburn-reception

#markmoorefineart #stephaniewashburn

For the past 25 years, Jeffry Mitchell has approached his artistic exploration of the shared human experiences of love, death, sex, and spiritual trial and redemption with sincerity and intuitive intelligence. His newest body of work is now featured at Mark Moore Fine Art as an exclusive ARTSY online exhibition opening today.

Vire this presentation of five new works from his most recent series of Salt-Fired Ceramics at:

https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-jeffry-mitchell-the-salt-fired-works-2017

JEFFRY MITCHELL‘s art radiates with a charming appeal, marked by an exuberant abundance of forms, materials, and techniques. From his earliest experiments with resin and paper to his extended engagement with ceramics and his latest multi-part installations, Mitchell has consistently investigated the decorative and the theatrical and blurred distinctions between art, craft, and functionality.

Mitchell has developed a distinctive visual language full of symbolic characters like alphabet primers, flowers, elephants, bears, and other flora and fauna. What might first appear as child-like sweetness or nostalgic sentimentality quickly gives way to complex emotional content and deeper narratives that touch upon his identity as a creative artist and gay man as well as his working class Catholic background. Mitchell also responds to specific aspects of the history of art, craft, and visual culture. He fashions sophisticated twists on sources as diverse as Chinese funerary sculpture, folk art, Russian Constructivism, watercolor nature illustrations, and modernist assemblage.

Mitchell’s work can be found in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Fine Art Houston, the Tang Museum, the Crocker Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, Philadelphia Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Philadelphia Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum (Harvard University), Honolulu Museum of Art, Tacoma Art Museum, and the Portland Art Museum.

ADDITIONAL WORKS AVAILABLE:

In addition, I have taken the liberty of placing all available work on the Mark Moore Fine Art ARTSY webpage for easy reference. You can find all the details and images of all the Mitchell works currently available at:

https://www.artsy.net/mark-moore-gallery/artist/jeffry-mitchell

Finally, you will find a superb essay on the work of Jeffry Mitchell currently featured in the ARTSY WRITER Section of the website. You can check out this wonderful look at the work of Jeffry Mitchell by art writer Jen Graves at the following link:

https://www.artsy.net/mark-moore-gallery/article/mark-moore-fine-art-work-artist-jeffry-mitchell

#markmoorefineart

#jeffrymitchell

Please find a link attached for you our most recent on-line catalog on the work of FEODOR VORONOV as part of our ongoing STATEMENTS Series of publications.

Please download it and enjoy it compliments of MMFA at:

http://www.markmoorefineart.com/attachment/en/581c5e0c84184e51358b4568/Press/581c5ea884184e51358b804a

Mark Moore Fine Art is thrilled to announce “Rainbow of Chaos“, a presentation of recent work by artist, Feodor Voronov. This exclusive online ARTSY exhibition will be an exploration into Voronov’s manipulation of “operative formalism,” and engagement with language.

View this presentation of paintings and works on paper by Voronov now at: 

https://www.artsy.net/show/mark-moore-fine-art-feodor-voronov-rainbow-of-chaos

#markmoorefineart

#feodorvoronov