I used to feel daunted going into Mark Cooper’s exhibitions. There was so much going on – an abundance of form, color, gesture, meaning, an overflow of ceramics, collages, structures to hold the work – how could I get my head around it all? That was back when I felt I had to understand everything rather than surrender to it. Mark’s work is like a big party to which he has invited all the brilliant and creative people just to see what happens, and I’m still a bit intimidated by big parties.
Jane Deering Gallery has paired Mark with his old friend Joel Janowitz in Cape Ann| two visions, a show that really gets to the yin and the yang of it.
Joel paints spaces that glimmer and dissolve like desert mirages, built from inchoate elements like light and shadow, impossible to grasp but delightful to bask in. I see them as Neptunian. In astrology, Neptune represents the sea and all that is ungraspable: Imagination, delusion, projection, dreams, film, addiction. Viewing one of Joel’s paintings brings me to an open quiet like a good morning meditation. Colors, gestures, plays of light ripple through and tickle associations.
All art is somehow Neptunian, of course, and Mark’s work is packed in its own way with phantoms and associations (art historical references, conceptual opposites, materials, techniques). He leans into the unexpected confluences and connections within a piece, within an exhibition, and between the art and the viewer. Each of Mark’s pieces is the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and setting off a tornado in Texas, reflecting the fractal field we live in.
Joel and Mark are old friends. They meet for lunch and critiques near their South End studios and they both have been drawn to Cape Ann as a source of inspiration. Cape Ann| two visions centers imagery inspired by local sites. It chatters, pings, and sinks deep.
The effect of the whole show reflects Mark’s systems thinking.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.