Portland Art Open

 

Mark Clarson’s work is rooted deeply in what might be a life-long wanderlust, he has lived in over thirty different homes so far.  Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that his work contains references to travel, circuses, and the very structures in which we spend most of our time - albeit in unexpected ways.  It is also an observant art that is rooted in historical knowledge and a sensitivity to Mark’s surrounding geography. 

Mark was able to take the time to discuss with me the qualities of his own work - and where it might be headed in the future.

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What first drew you to the arts?  How long did you intend to become artist?

I began drawing at a young age and communicated visually for as long as I can remember.  As soon as I realized that being an artist as a profession was a feasible option, it was my chosen course.  I was very fortunate to have an artist in my family in my grandmother who supported me in my visual pursuits from an early age.

 

You spent the majority of your formal art education in Chicago.  What impact did this have on your art?

I went to art school and graduate school in Chicago and ended up staying there for other reasons.  I lived in the city of Chicago for 16 years of my adult life.  I became very interested in Chicago’s deep industrial manufacturing history and I would say that it a direct influence on my art practice.  It is in Chicago that I became interested in metalworking as a means to express my visual discourse.  I really struggled with the notion of working with these very traditional materials.  Working with metal (specifically bronze and steel) brings to mind the work of the high-modernist sculptors of the 1960’s.  Working with these materials is in many ways taboo in the post-modern lexicon.  I became involved with fabricators and metal workers in various trade applications in Chicago.   It was through these relationships with non-artist metalworkers that I began to start using these materials in my work and seeing the materials inherent visual value.

I would also say that Chicago has a very rich public sculpture history that has influenced my approach to art practice and exhibition.  It is difficult to name the many influences the city has on my art practice.  I will say that while attending graduate school I was lucky enough to work with Homi K. Bhabha.  This influence directly informed my work as it relates to identity, colonization and the politics of cosmopolitanism and multi-culturalism. 

 

You hail from Texas originally, and your work references both Mexican Circus Tents as well as the infamous outlaw, Joaquin Murrieta.  What is it that drew you to Mexican culture in particular?

I was raised in Texas but I am truly a nomad at heart.  My mother is a professional tarot-card reader and I was always surrounded by mystics of different calibers of skill throughout my childhood.  I have lived in over 30 residences so far in my life. While living in Chicago, I took a sabbatical to West Texas and became very interested in the nomadic tent circuses of the 17th and 18th century.  I especially became interested in the nomadic-mystics of the Las Carpas and their influence on West Texas.   In Southwest Texas, Anglo culture has appropriated many of the visual and cultural practices of Mexican culture.  From architecture, art, food, and dress the two cultures are virtually intertwined into the West Texas landscape.   It is part of what makes that region of Texas so interesting and unique.  This influence is specific to the Las Carpas and Joaquin Murrieta pieces. 

The newer work  (Space Race and The Visitation) is not specifically influenced by West Texas at all.  The sculpture I am showing for the Art Open is based on my time New Orleans.

 

How do you perceive the outlaw in modern America?  Do you believe that the notion of the ‘bandit’ has changed drastically from the time of Murrieta?

The two sculptures featuring Joaquin Murrieta and his captor Harry Love are still in progress and will be in a show at the Guardino Gallery in 2009.

The outlaw is a classic figure in American folklore and a great deal of scholarly work has been created cataloging the mythology of the written and oral history of the outlaw.

In the West of the mid 18th century there was a distinct mythological narrative attached to the Outlaws of the day that was inherently moral.   This is not an exclusively contemporary notion that was developed in Hollywood as many think.  There is a Robin Hood approach to outlaws such as Joaquin Murrieta that was a popular tactic for storytellers of the day.  This is in fact where the character of Zorro was created.  Of course, the historical truth was a completely different set of circumstances.  Joaquin was responsible for many cold-blooded and unprovoked violent deaths.  This however does not interest me as an artist.  I am interested in the mythology as a visual language. The bandit in contemporary American culture continues to be mythologized in ways that are a telling reference point for cultural self-examination.  The collective memory of the outlaw as it relates to contemporary storytelling has evolved in recent history to one less concerned with a moral imperative to one that is more focused on issues relating to self-indulgence and power. 

 

The circus is typically viewed as a visually wild and chaotic place, yet your drawing and sculpture appears comparatively subdued.  Your drawings, in particular, show figures in constricted, visually enclosed spaces.  What led you to portray your subject in this way?

In Las Carpas, I am not interested in the physical act of the circus performance itself.  I am interested in the time and space spent traveling from show to show within the Texas and Mexican deserts.  These pieces originate from the moments spent in camp in a state of waiting to perform. The representation of solitude is ever present in my work.  A searching to connect through an act of visual performance is inherent in these fictional characters of the Las Carpas.

 

Your sculptures in Las Carpas often show a human, animal, or both standing over unmoving relics of humanity like cars and houses.  How does this tie into your subject matter?

The fabricated vehicles and homes in my work are visual signifiers that associate the viewer to a specific time and place.  With that being said, I am not interested in nostalgia per se.   From very early on I was influenced by the way the stack or column was used in the work of Constantin Brancusi.  I became interested in a notion of a visual hierarchy.  The vehicles and houses often serve as a reference point of place within my work.

 

When it comes to day-to-day routine, one might view the ‘occupation’ of artists and outlaws as polar opposites.  Yet the mentality of each is up to debate.  This is an extreme statement (I’m playing devil’s advocate here) - but one might see the artist of today as supremely self-indulgent, but completely powerless.  Do you ever see yourself or other artists as having a relation to ‘outlaws’ of the past?

In terms of power, I do not tend to think of artists as having inherent power per se.  The artist throughout history has consistently played the role of a for-hire craftsman serving the needs of the bourgeoisie.  Only recently through Modernism, Conceptualism and now Post Modernism is the artist on a self-guided journey of representation that has not necessarily been driven by the desires of their clientele.  However the art market is a finicky place, and I am not kidding myself in the belief that art makers of today (myself included) do not change their practice to address the tastes of the moment.   With that being said, the artist certainly does provide visual input to the culture in which the artist works.  Certainly there is a power associated with the ability to transcend time and be viewed within art history.

In terms of the artist as outlaw, I think to the works of Andres Serrano, Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, and of the suspended formaldehyde animals of Damien Hirst to a lesser extent. There is a distinction between controversial and illegal, but I believe that these examples illustrate your point well.   All of these artists explore boundaries of visual representation as it relates to the notion of beauty.  They do not necessarily break the law, but they certainly challenge the status quo. 

In terms of actual illegal art practice; you have the work of British artist Robert Thwaites.   He became well known for his wonderfully executed forgeries that cost unsuspecting art collectors millions of dollars.  He was eventually captured and imprisoned.  However, once he was released from prison in 2007, he has become quite successful selling his forgeries as forgeries.

 

The pieces contain familiar elements such as houses, cars, and animals - yet they are of a size not quite small enough to be considered models in the traditional sense.  You also mention public sculpture as an influence.  What do you like about the scale you work in currently , and have you considered doing larger, sight-based sculptures in the future?

I have to work in a scale that I can physically handle without asking for too much help from others.  All of my materials are quite heavy and I try to keep the work on a manageable human scale.  Most of my gallery work falls in the 36″ x 36″ x 36″ realm which works fairly well for indoor exhibition.  I try to be careful in this scale range because at some point they start to look like toys or models.  There is a fine line between sculpture and model making that tends not to be very well defined.  It is a problem with representational object making that is not unique to my work.

I have submitted a few ideas for public site-specific works and we shall see if they go into production.  In those pieces, the work is responding to the scale of the architecture so we are getting in the 20′ x 20′ arena (which is quite expensive to produce using my methods).  I would require some outside capital to be able to produce work in this scale.  I am interested in working in a larger scale and I do hope to be able to achieve some site-specific works in the future.

 

What brings you to Portland?  Considering your work is so informed by geography, have you found aspects of your current home creeping into it?

I have been coming out to Portland annually since 1992 to visit my mother.  I also lived here for a brief stint in 1995.   I have three children and I want them to have the best childhood experience that I can provide.  Chicago is a great city for adults and it may even be a great city for children if you are stinking rich.  Portland allows a very sustainable lifestyle on a relatively modest income.

As a secondary reason, I moved to Portland because the local art scene blows Chicago’s out of the water on almost every front.  The art community here is fantastic and much more supportive than you find in the bigger cities of the Midwest and East coast. 

In terms of new work based on the Pacific Northwest, I have been making some drawings and I will see where they take the work.  I am still finishing up some of my other pieces from my time in Chicago and I need to get those completed and out into the world before I begin anything else.  With that being said, the things that immediately captivated me on a visual level when I moved here were the OHSU Willamette Shore Trolley over I-5 and those strange skyline cables that are attached to yarders in the logging industry to move felled trees.  I am going to see if I can make a sculpture that integrates those two very visually striking elements in a kinetic sculpture in the near future.

 

You’ve said that you’re a nomad at heart.  Do you have anywhere that you’d really like to go to soon?

I have settled on Portland and this is home base. It is a wonderful city and it is where I want to raise my children.  I have a house in a great inner-city neighborhood and the children are attending an amazing public arts focused elementary school that I adore.  With that being said, I would very much like to spend some time in Uruguay.  I am really interested in the gauchos of the region, and I would love to learn as much as I can about their experience in the Uruguayan outback firsthand.  On a side note, I hear the Uruguayan beef is fantastic as well.

 

Which of your pieces can we be expecting at the Portland Art Open?

I am showing a sculpture that is based on my time in New Orleans entitled Floating on the Ninth.  I am also showing one of the Las Carpas etchings.  I think these two pieces will showcase what I am about as an artist well.  I really do not want to crowd the space with too much work, so I think these two will be the perfect amount for the space provided.

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Thanks again to the artist for an excellent interview.  Mark Clarson will be showing his work at Milepost 5 on 900 NE 81st Ave.