NEW YORK, NY.- FACTION Art Projects have announced a solo show of painter Armando Mari駉. The exhibition consists of 10 new large-scale oil paintings of figures in landscapes that draw on themes of identity and personal history within the current political and socio-economic climate.
Drawing from his Cuban roots,燗rmando燤ari駉’s爓ork is influenced by periods of time living in燙uba, the Netherlands, France燼nd New York’s Hudson Valley, and his experience of dislocation and popular culture.
The places and people embedded within the works燼re suffused with social and political significance.燯sing imagery taken from his own photographs as well as爀xternal sources, the artist’s works connect to one of the most pressing issues of our world today.
Armando燤ari駉’s爌aintings are燾haracterised燽y his distinctive and highly saturated燾olour爌alette – bright pinks, oranges, greens and yellows that are offset by deep, dark shadows.燚espite the traditional medium,燤ari駉爈ikens the hues he works with to those that can be found in films, video games and advertising – super-saturated digital燾olours爐hat fizz and pop, connecting to our contemporary way of viewing the world.燙olour爄s essential to the work, indeed,燤ari駉爃as described painting as an idea that uses燾olour爄n order to communicate.
Each of燤ari駉’sfinished canvases begins with a number of paintings on paper. In oil燼nd爓atercolour, these studies are the places where the artist’s ideas first come to life –爓here爐he composition,燾olour燼nd surface details are worked out and eventually fixed down. The works on paper are a crucial part of燤ari駉’s research process as well as being important parts of his wider practice in their own right. 燭he artists then燽uilds爑p each of his paintings with multiple layers of oil paint. Each begin with a foundation of cadmium yellow or orange, painstakingly layered爑ntil爒ibrancy is achieved.
The title is derived from the ‘dark forest’ in Dante’s Inferno, which serves as a metaphor for the protagonist’s ‘spiritual, physical, psychological, moral and political’ disorientation through his ‘bewildering period of adolescence’. The figures in Mari駉’s work similarly are situated within both physical and metaphorical darkness, the landscapes often alluding to forestry and nature. The ideological context in which the figures find themselves can also be seen as ‘disorientating’, and reflects the US’s current political mood.
One example of this is ‘The Mexican’ which depicts a young man draped in a glowing floral sheet flagged by cacti. Feeling that Mexican people are often undervalued by US society, except when at the forefront of controversy despite their extraordinary contribution to the workings of the country, the figure’s magnificent shroud seeks to ‘make the invisible visible’, and is Mari駉’s tribute to Mexican’s living in the US. The work also references homeless or stateless figures, normally disregarded from contemporary society, but here glorified by the golden gown.
Other works play with the duality of visible/ invisible in reference to immigrants, evoking the paradox between increasing cultural hybridity and globalisation, and decisions to restrict access and close borders.
Armando Mari駉 was born in Cuba and now lives and works in New York. He studied art in Havana and Santiago de Cuba in the 1980s and 1990s, and at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam between 2004 and 2005. He has since exhibited his paintings all over the world including solo and group exhibitions in Paris, Ontario, Copenhagen, Madrid and Miami among other cities. Mari駉 has won numerous awards for his paintings and his work is held in such notable collections as that of Deutsche Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, The Coca Cola Foundation and other significant public and private collections in Europe, Central America and the USA.
