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Tinsquo's curatorial project, Adjacent To Life, presents Mood Portals by Andrés Marino. Marisa Malone contributes the exhibition essay:
Andrés Marino’s first solo exhibit, Mood Portals, is an homage to the multiplicity of the self and the unconscious. It is a study of what emerges when we cut through the noise.
While making art and music on and off for most of his life, a dedicated painting practice is fairly new. His technical limitations become a constraint with which he generates images that surprise even himself. With a nod to Surrealist techniques of drawing one’s unconscious to the fore, Marino often starts a painting “faster than I feel comfortable with,” he says. “Then stuff starts to emerge and I’ll play with that.”
Accepting the challenges of being a novice with humility, Marino explains, “if I can do just well enough to communicate the idea then it’s fine. [S]omething photorealistic. . . isn’t my goal, and inadvertently (and luckily) I come through.” There’s something to be said for work that is less filtered to bring us closer to the artist's initial impulse.
Marino’s paintings are part meditation on the self, part pure creative drive. “Identity stuff is a big deal,” he says. “I get viewed in certain ways and, consequently, I view myself in certain ways. It’s a pain in the ass.” We see this grappling take place on the canvas, addressing themes of selfhood, cultural hypocrisies, and inside jokes with a wry sense of humor.
Considering his approach, it’s no surprise there is a range of styles and subjects, reflecting the plasticity of identity. “Even though [the paintings] are all different,” says Marino, “there’s something cohesively coming from me.”
Marisa Malone grew up in the Sierra foothills of Nevada. She studied writing and literature at The Evergreen State College and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing has been published in BlazeVox Journal and Selfish Magazine, along with two self-published poetry chapbooks.
Mood Portals is on view through August 18 at the Adjacent To Life gallery hosted by Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B, New York City).