SPARTANBURG, SC .- UPSTATE Gallery on Main is presenting Inhabiting Experience, a selection of recent works by Greenville, SC, painter Mark Brosseau. The exhibition opened on July 11 and runs through August 25, 2017. An artist reception will be held on July 20 from 5-8 pm during Spartanburg ArtWalk.
Inspired in part by his artist residency in Iceland, Brosseau’s pulsating abstractions celebrate the idiosyncrasy of visual experience and simultaneously negotiate our facility to process it. Using effervescent color and primary forms in deceptively complex ways, alternatively opaque and revealing layers create neatly stacked yet constantly mobilized spaces. Both whimsical and seductive, these ever-shifting images gently challenge the viewer to find their own stability in our oscillating universe.
“I use painting to ask questions about existence and learn about how I relate to everything around me,” Brosseau said. “The paintings are experiments, and I want them to be simultaneously vast and intimate – equally fleeting and precious.”
Mark Brosseau, originally of Vermont, earned his BA from Dartmouth College in 1998 and MFA from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design in 2001. In addition to being awarded the 2001 Fulbright Fellowship for painting, Brosseau also completed an artist residency in 2002 at Straumur International Art Commune in Hafnarfjordor, Iceland, and was the co-director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia from 2014-2016. His work has been featured in over 70 group and solo shows and over 30 publications and is included in numerous public and private collections throughout the U.S., Iceland, and the Netherlands.
The Upstate Gallery on Main is the newest addition of the University of South Carolina Upstate’s 3 gallery spaces. Located at 172 E. Main Street in Spartanburg. It is a dedicated art space that houses and displays the university’s permanent collection including works by Andy Warhol, Jerry Uelsmann, Jack Tworkov, and Beatrice Riese. Along with permanent collection work the front gallery houses a rotating schedule of regional and national artists’ work. The gallery is primarily run by students as part of an on going internship program where they learn how to display, research, and promote the work on exhibit in the gallery. It is open to the public five days a week (Tuesday-Saturday) from 12 noon until 5 p.m.
