March 30, 2014

Pop Stoppage Series: "odd_#259"

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Hand torn soda bottle labels and acrylic on paper, 11” x 17”
Posted by Mark Roth at 09:26 PM

March 21, 2014

Remade Readymades: "rare"

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acetate, magazine page and ink jet print, 11" x 8.5"

This work was featured on the back cover of the premiere issue of The Stand Newspaper, the latest project of gallerist, artist and impresario for the outsider Lori Der Hagopian.

Posted by Mark Roth at 08:37 PM

March 16, 2014

Missing the Megafauna: Mastodon (Mammut americanum)

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acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"
Posted by Mark Roth at 09:12 PM

March 08, 2014

The Tumbleweed Paintings: "treated_#14"

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acrylic on magazine page, 11” x 14”
Posted by Mark Roth at 01:28 PM

March 04, 2014

In Retrospect at Adjacent to Life

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Fibonacci, oil on canvas, 48" x 40"

Picasso is said to have explained that he’d sometimes leave a painting unfinished in the corner of the studio. Weeks, months or even years later, he’d unearth that canvas to discover it magically resolved, as if on its own.

The paintings displayed here reflect a similar dynamic. While I’ve always considered them resolved, a critical transformation has occurred during the many years since they were archived in my studio.

This aesthetic alchemy is driven by a multi-fold mechanism. Partly, the works stand as irreproducible relics of an aspirant artist in the thrall of the New York School painters. The doors to that former self now closed, they also retroactively connect-the-dots to subsequent evolution.

Picasso might have considered this art of recovery the aesthetics of self-compassion - increased self-acceptance on the part of the painter leads to a tempered critical eye. Could Picasso’s tale have been a wink and nod to the retrospective gaze as another tool at the artist’s disposal?

In Retrospect: Paintings by Mark Roth runs through April 4 at the Adjacent to Life pop-up gallery housed in Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B).

Posted by tinsquo at 05:04 PM

March 01, 2014

January and February's Acrylic Palettes

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Posted by Mark Roth at 02:58 AM