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Mark Wethli
Mark Wethli's latest paintings, completed during his current year-long sabbatical in New York City, continue his investigation into the interplay of color, light, and geometry. Unlike his previous work, however, in which grids comprised of various colors were defined by straight edges, the grids and stripes featured in his newest work are drawn by hand and more freely painted, giving them a hand-hewn quality that tempts the boundary between the organic and the geometric.
The work has been inspired by visits to the Museum of American Folk Art in New York and the Museum of Visionary Art in Baltimore, and the Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum (which features the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas), among others. Wethli also cites the stripes and grid patterns that are frequently found in fabric design and decorative art in general, which are especially abundant on the crowded sidewalks of urban centers like New York.
"I'm continually looking for ways to make the work more elemental and direct," he added, "which pulls me in two directions at once--toward ideal platonic forms on the one hand and toward my own creative origins and native instincts on the other."
Links to Online Articles:
New Paintings at Icon Gallery
Where color meets color
Making the Unfamiliar, Familiar The Schick's Newest Visual Buffet