Juxtapoz Magazine – Mark Yang is Having a “Lucid Dream” in London

Many Modest Fires provides an exhibition of new paintings by American painter, Mark Yang, at No. 9 Cork Avenue, London, on perspective until November 26thThe exhibition, Lucid Dream, represents the artist’s to start with European exhibition, and the initially exhibition of his is effective on paper. The artist was born in Seoul, South Korea. He grew up in California, and lives and operates in New York.

Mark Yang paints the determine but is not fascinated in creating narratives. As a substitute, he takes advantage of the human human body as a conceptual jumping-off issue to investigate how we entwine, interact with, and read other human beings.

Yang renders his forms in an idiosyncratic, angular, graphically stylized fashion, treating overall body pieces as sculptures to be painted. His palette is made up of darkish purples, acid greens, brilliant pops of yellow, orange, and pink. He takes advantage of fluid gestures and undulating strains to develop entangled, mysterious, uneven compositions that really do not straight away give away the plot.

Routinely, the viewer just can’t discern which limb is connected to which overall body. Gratuitous legs wrap around a one butt while a lot of arms writhe in a tangled mass. These nonsensical knots communicate volumes as a result of model, human body language, and other visible codes distinctive to human beings.

Yang generally avoids depicting faces in favor of ambiguity and a sluggish visible read through. When faces do seem, they usually snooze… or sleep eternally. Yang paints what he is aware of, applying himself as a quotidian product. His figures – male, female, and gender neutral – serve as intellectual clay for their maker, not sexualized amusements. In simple fact, he exaggerates male nipples, turning them into official features, which resemble eyes and “look” back at the viewer.

For his Cork Road exhibition, Yang grapples with several new themes. He considers the magical system of building new lifestyle, in Yeondu and Lucid Desire. He proceeds interpreting canonical works this sort of as Mantegna’s Lamentation of Christ, Michelangelo’s Battle of the Centaurs and Bartolini’s The Demidoff Table. Eventually, in Anterior (night time) and Posterior (night), Yang explores the spectre of the pandemic, as very well as other latest world occasions that have introduced us photographs over and above comprehension.

Human body language can be ambiguous, as can people. At the stop of the day, Yang’s paintings explore the complexities and problems of comprehending other human beings – a conceptual puzzle most of us confront on a day-to-day foundation.