Art Hound

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely, Brooklyn-based Marcie Paper and gaining a better understanding of her work. I came across Marcie’s ingenious series, Paintings for The Recession, online and it really resonated with me. Paper has found a way to make the art she wants to make while also offering compelling pieces for low-end art buyers. So far Marcie has made more than fifty Paintings for The Recession and sold most of them, many to fans without the means to purchase her larger paintings.

(Paintings above available through the artist for $50, $50, $70)

Marcie works on two series simultaneously: her larger paintings, which take months, sometimes years to complete and her Paintings for The Recession, which are small exercises completed in a few days or weeks. Each Painting for The Recession represents a memory from that day in Paper’s life, a visual representation of a mundane yet significant detail (examples include seeing a mob of umbrellas, her knitting group or a leaky roof). These more modest paintings also allow Marcie to tease out specific ideas before layering them into her larger pieces.

Marcie’s larger paintings document these daily occurrences over an extended period of time. When Marcie runs out of space, she simply paints over the paper and starts again. The layers upon layers of paint harden the paper and make it heavy, turning it into a physical object as much as a painting. I never would have appreciated the incredible amount of work that goes into these pieces without talking to Marcie and watching her animated paintings, which show a painting’s typical progression. Marcie’s larger paintings are currently on display at Tinlark Gallery through December 19th.