Art Hound

Mark Warren Jacques‘ show, I’m Here Now, opens tonight at Gallery Hijinks in San Francisco. Jacques is a popular player in the SF/Portland indie art scene and certainly deserves the recognition. He is a very talented kid (I’m allowed to call him a kid. He was born in ’84.).

I think his work is fascinating in the way it’s so precise yet mind-bogglingly expansive, but ultimately Jacques’ paintings feels elusive and unyielding to me. Like the ideas and principles his work explores, his paintings are so meta and obtuse that they must be swallowed whole if at all.

It’s interesting to me that Gallery Hijinks emphasizes this show as a definitive departure for Jacques when in my mind the work feels fundamentally the same.

“Clean, fluid lines juxtaposed with bold geometric shapes may have been the artist’s most evident trait until now. This collection unveils a new direction in concept and theory for Jacques, incorporating forms, figures and anatomy with his existing spectrum of symmetrical and organic shapes, unearthing a new dialogue for the viewer.”

Thoughts?

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Yes, I know I’m kind of obsessed with house art, but I didn’t even realize this installation was a house (of sorts) until watching the video below. I swear! Reminds me of Jim Houser’s installations.

Free Life Center by Mark Warren Jacques and Seth Neefus at Needles + Pens. Photos and interview by MLFU.

The Free Life Center is “…a movable gallery space, built of reclaimed materials, in a modular fashion. At its full size the structure is a pretty large free standing building (10 ft wide x 16 ft long x 10ft tall), complete with lighting, a tin roof and a wood floor… At each location along the journey we’ve been setting up the structure and filling it with our artworks, video works, process documentation, interactive installation elements, music, good vibes. Along with our own artworks we’ve asked members of each local community to join in…” – Mark Warren Jacques

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