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Artists Statements
Diary Excerpt Place: Chelsea Studio
My first classical concert, I was greatly impressed by the Timpani, the kettle drums in the orchestra. The rhythm, the vast resonance, the shape, the action of the musician striking the stretched surface all fascinated me. Recently, I was reminded of this when viewing film and digital media that have been made of me at work this past year . The microphone picked up the intimate sounds of my instruments - brushes, pencils and geometric objects, touching the substrate. Experiencing these as playback I realized that they have several facets - reflecting the sounds i of the city and my own steps where my narrative is formed as I walk and observe, refreshing the impact and emotion within me that was so struck by the drums years ago, answering in counterpoint the sound I hear around me in the studio, and joining with those sounds in driving forward the next phases of the work in progress. If the action of making the mark creates a sound, isn't that mark in a sense a score of that sound, something that can be recognized by the viewer as expressing music, even re-interpreted by an instrumentalist? This notion has been reinforced by the response the my work currently on view at Danese... In fact, it has also been the subject of an approach that I have been experimenting with in collaboration with the flutist, Yukari, with whom I have worked in public performance before, toward an integrated approach to creating auditory and visual art. At the studio, we staged session during which she improvised on the flute while I marked in dry media on large sheets of paper - as I heard and responded, she played her response to what I set on the sheet - each of us composing and conducting. Most interesting is that this was not a performance for an audience, and the end product beyond digital documentation of the surface and sound was 2 independent sets of quality works - hers as audio recordings and mine as major drawings, all created within the span of one afternoon. This work begins another level under the umbrella of my continuing "Cross Narrative Series," named for the the varying threads of sight, sound thought and feeling that infuse my subject matter and are manifest in the work as gestures, lines and geometric forms, in arrangements either symmetrical or "random." Adding consciousness of the dimension of sound is the current phase of this exploration of my mark-making as a visual representation of life.
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crossed narratives book acrylic and sumi ink on paper
"Crossing Narratives" / "Crossed Narratives" Millions of feet mark the city streets every day. People, likely unaware of their actions, re-paint and re-surface the landscape with every step. They walk into unhardened tar, wet painted lines, dropped papers and the spray-paint diagrams of the repair crews, layering the street with marks. Combined with natural erosion, these marks comprise an endless mural laid upon the urban landscape. Responding to this as a reporter, I create the works I call "Crossing Narratives," a series of observations of this multi-layered, multifaceted translucent urban landscape. Working with graphite, ink paint and wax, my images evolve. First, gestural marks set the guide and surface of the work. Second, the pours, drips and thrown paint layered translucently January 2009 (this for statement was created for the exhibition, Crossing Narratives")
“My diary speaks to heart of the matter, my creation... it is my reflection in the moment in between all the moments of my creation.” Place: Sitting by my studio door
Mark Wiener - Studio Interview - December 2008 by RogeSmithLife.com and Panman Productions
Place: Studio Place: in the rain again Place: A Museum A neighbor bumped into me this afternoon at the Metropolitian Museum of Art. He said to me,
Place: 79th street Where did I find my first primary shapes?
Place: In my head
Place: Park Avenue Armory
View from a camera that was mounted to my hand as I worked - 2006
Place: Walking on Park Avenue Thoughts have been bouncing around, what am I actually creating? What has this work of the past year brought me? The past year this has brought me the attention of those who like to think, who understand the idea of looking for the edge... How has my life experience changed over this past year of working only in black and white? This is all about communicating a different way, eliminating color, the filtering of distractions, minimalizing the surface so as to look closer at what has always been taken for granted, what lies in the shadows. Therefore seeing again.
To view additional works by a studio visit
The Studio is located on Park Avenue and 79th Street
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