Marlene Mocquet
dal 20/6/2007 al 16/8/2007
Segnalato da
20/6/2007
Marlene Mocquet
Freight + Volume, New York
Mocquet drips her canvases in oils, acrylics and gouache, creating an effect equal parts ethereal, warped and fantastic. In the project space Sylvan Lionni will present four new hard-edged abstractions that emphasize his labor-intensive painting process.
Recent Paintings + Project Space: Sylvan Lionni. Zugzwang
Melding surrealism with the sublime, Marlene Mocquet drips her canvases in oils, acrylics and
gouache, creating an effect equal parts ethereal,
warped and fantastic. Each disparate picture
registers as a character within a greater aesthetic
alphabet that Mocquet employs to describe an
absurd microcosm of players and scenes.
Mocquet's is a world of animated objects and
anthropomorphic animals. Birds, volcanoes and
beasts bleed into her raw surfaces. She
simultaneously obeys and defies her materials -
sometimes creating the illusion of a watercolor, other
times letting the viscosity of paint live on its
own. Bold and arbitrary gestures operate as starting
points to generate imagery and dictate
composition - these surrealist devices are utilized to
develop her dizzying brand of anti-narrative.
Mocquet's lucid formal vernacular is reminiscent of
early Paul Klee or at times Max Ernst in her
affinity for symbols and otherworldly stand-ins. The
aesthetic qualities of Klee's almost primitive
early drawings and paintings appear in delicate ways
throughout Mocquet's arrangements. Her
work also lays claim to such varied sources as Art
Brut, the Cobra Movement, the grotesquerie of
James Ensor, the exquisite palate of Emil Nolde, and
the transcendent botanicals of Odilon
Redon. The artist's coarse mark-making and the faux-
naïf of subject matter presents an almost
brutal and seemingly outsider quality.
A recent graduate of the School of the Fine Arts of
Paris, this will be Marlène Mocquet's first US
solo exhibition, having recently shown her work at
Galerie Alain Gutharc, Paris. On display at
Freight + Volume will be a selection of nearly 20 small
canvases, a sampling of the artist's most
recent work.
In the project space Sylvan Lionni will present
four new hard-edged abstractions that emphasize
his labor-intensive painting process, exploring forms
of signage and the influence of everyday
consumerist fixtures. Fascinated by the banal objects
of daily life - faded American flag stickers,
lotto tickets and computer keypads - Lionni translates
this source material into his own lineage of
dead-pan picture making.
Sylvan Lionni received his MFA from Bard College, NY
and BA from SVA, NY. His solo
exhibitions include Rebecca Ibel Gallery, Columbus,
OH; Fusebox, Washington, DC and Rome
Arts, Brooklyn, NY. Born in Cuckfield, England, he
currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Image:
Marlène Mocquet
The Volcano to the Bird (Le volcan à l'oiseau),
2007
35 x 35 cm / 13.7 x 13.7 in
mixed media on canvas
Courtesy of Freight + Volume, New York
Freight + Volume
542 West 24th Street - New York