Alex Markwith, Subliminal Thoughts, 2021, 100x80cm
EXHIBITION ON VIEW
May 18 - June 9
Kluuvikatu 3, 00100 Helsinki
Store Hours:
Mon - Fri 10:30 - 7
Saturday 11 - 5
Sunday CLOSED
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Overcurrents is a solo exhibition of collaged paintings by Alex Markwith which incorporate materials such as spray paint, mesh, foil, tape and torn up garments. Created in the early months of 2021, the canvases are populated by a mix of intentional and incidental process marks, blurring the lines between found, deliberate and provisional aesthetics.
This project was conceptualized as a collaboration with Max Mara Helsinki and is supported by funds from Taike.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the symbolic value of the construction site and the city streets came to the forefront of public consciousness with systemic injustices, economic and racial inequalities on full display. The pent-up energy of the past year is now being released as we collectively strive toward a positive future, with a renewed understanding of our society’s fragilities and resiliencies.
A variety of complex moods and emotions arise: ambivalence, ambition, passivity, rage, control, abandon, joy. The words DANGER, CAUTION, POLICE LINE, FRAGILE and others, or fragments of these letters, appear printed on found tapes collected in New York City and Helsinki. In everyday life, these tapes designate a region where access is reserved for specialists, marking an area as off limits to the general public. Removed from context, they speak to the artist’s effort to deal with complex or difficult ideas and emotions generally ignored in daily life. Bright iridescent foil and metallic colors shine beneath the surface like a glimmer of hope, or something buried and forgotten. Unless, of course, it is just trash.
While the political backdrop provides one reading of the series, the works are primarily abstract in nature and draw from a diverse range of art historical references. Inverse (2021) shows a downward triangle, the alchemical symbol of water (the subconscious), rendered in black, white, red and green – pairs of opposite colors which contribute to a multi-layered image. Paint splatters and stray spray can lines relate to the whimsical forms of early surrealist paintings, floating between the nodes of intellectual and subliminal experience, extroversion and introspection.
WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Alex Markwith (b. 1988) is an American visual artist who lived in New York City for nine years before moving to Helsinki in 2020. His work has been widely exhibited in the US and Europe,
and is included in numerous private collections as well as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
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