Son of Mang - installation view

 

Son of Mang

Mark Braunias

Aug 7 - Sept 1, 2018

 

Son of Mang - installation view

 

Son of Mang - installation view

Son of Mang is a simple gesture - Mark Braunias boldly placing new work alongside a triptych of charcoal drawings from 1998, and three taut yet utterly satisfying Tooth Head paintings, dated 2015 - 18.

"This exhibition brings together a body of work that connects to an artistic practice twenty years in the making. It pivots around a large 10-panel charcoal work on paper, Mang (1997), held in the Christchurch Art Gallery collection since 2002.

Mang, 1997
Mang, 1997 - Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery

The central core of these works is the artist's long-term investigation into a hybrid of biological shapes and comic figuration, seen through the lens of modernist abstraction. The strict formalism of pictorial space (emphasized by the push and pull of figure/ground) collides with the playful absurdity of the 'Goofy' shapes staring back at the viewer. As images, the forms reference Walt Disney cartoon characters. Their graphic quality, however, suggests a Pop Art sensibility that never settles easily within either genre.

The evolutionary nature of inventing shapes from other shapes and the process of drawing through that in successive bodies of work is, in actual fact, the 'missing link'. These anthropomorphic figures, with names such as Gene Fool, Tooth Head and Joob, can be seen as the genetic spawn of Mang. This is a fertile breeding ground where biology and art share fluids with the asethete and the iconoclast. Is it sardonic abstraction or a celebration of Blobism? Perhaps both, and quite possibly neither (entirely).

Son Of Mang is the artistic progeny where the imagination is the creator, and its genetic inheritance comes from a life-time of inventing and re-inventing forms with DNA deep inside the plastic arts of drawing and painting. It's all in the mind you know. The creative mind really does make Matter matter."

MB
August 2018

 

Joob, 1998 (triptych) - installation view
Joob, 1998 (triptych)

   
 

Selected works

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Tooth Head I, 2015-18      Tooth Head II, 2015-18



Tooth Head III, 2015-18       Joob II, 1998



Joob I, 1998        Joob III, 1998

 
Fade Out, 2018
 

Mub, 2018        Fade, 2018

 

List of works

Joob (I - III) triptych, 1998    charcoal on paper    1140 x 2600mm framed   

Tooth Head I, 2015 - 18    acrylic & ink on board    1240 x 940mm   

Tooth Head II, 2015 - 18    acrylic & ink on board    1240 x 940mm  

Tooth Head III, 2015 - 18    enamel & acrylic on board    1240 x 940mm  

Fade Out, 2018    acrylic & ink on board    1250 x 970mm   

Fade, 2018    acrylic & ink on board    350 x 250mm   

Mub, 2018    acrylic & ink on board    350 x 250mm   

Related works

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Gene Fool I, 2015        Gene Fool VII, 2015

 

Joob IV, 1998        8 Fingers, 1998

 

Gene Fool I, 2015    acrylic & ink on board    240 x 190mm framed  

Gene Fool VII, 2015    acrylic & ink on board    240 x 190mm framed    

Joob IV, 1998    charcoal on paper    1000 x 700mm unframed   

8 Fingers, 1998    charcoal on paper    1000 x 700mm unframed