A variety of Smaller Fires presents an exhibition of new paintings by American painter, Mark Yang, at No. 9 Cork Avenue, London, on look at until finally November 26thThe exhibition, Lucid Dream, represents the artist’s initial European exhibition, and the very first exhibition of his performs on paper. The artist was born in Seoul, South Korea. He grew up in California, and life and functions in New York.

Mark Yang paints the figure but is not intrigued in developing narratives. Instead, he employs the human entire body as a conceptual leaping-off level to investigate how we entwine, interact with, and browse other human beings.

Yang renders his forms in an idiosyncratic, angular, graphically stylized method, dealing with body components as sculptures to be painted. His palette is composed of darkish purples, acid greens, dazzling pops of yellow, orange, and red. He takes advantage of fluid gestures and undulating strains to build entangled, mysterious, uneven compositions that really do not right away give absent the plot.

Routinely, the viewer can’t discern which limb is linked to which overall body. Gratuitous legs wrap all around a one butt when quite a few arms writhe in a tangled mass. These nonsensical knots connect volumes through design, entire body language, and other visible codes exceptional to human beings.

Yang ordinarily avoids depicting faces in favor of ambiguity and a gradual visible browse. When faces do show up, they often sleep… or rest eternally. Yang paints what he appreciates, utilizing himself as a quotidian design. His figures – male, woman, and gender neutral – provide as intellectual clay for their maker, not sexualized amusements. In simple fact, he exaggerates male nipples, turning them into official factors, which resemble eyes and “look” back at the viewer.

For his Cork Road exhibition, Yang grapples with a number of new themes. He considers the magical approach of building new daily life, in Yeondu and Lucid Dream. He continues interpreting canonical functions this sort of as Mantegna’s Lamentation of Christ, Michelangelo’s Fight of the Centaurs and Bartolini’s The Demidoff Desk. Eventually, in Anterior (evening) and Posterior (night time), Yang explores the spectre of the pandemic, as effectively as other recent planet events that have brought us photos further than comprehension.

Body language can be ambiguous, as can humans. At the conclude of the working day, Yang’s paintings discover the complexities and issues of knowing other human beings – a conceptual puzzle most of us confront on a daily basis.

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