Read DeWitt Cheng’s expert review, in 48 Hills, of Mark Perlman’s A Study in Contrasts exhibition here.
Mark Perlman’s encaustic microcosms diagram otherworldly elements
“At Nancy Toomey, the artist maps infinitely meditative mental landscapes that transcend time and space.”
DeWitt Cheng, 48 Hills
June 4, 2024
Sebastopol painter Mark Perlman—showing through June 15 at Nancy Toomey, SF—was born in Pittsburgh in 1950, and was influenced by the artistic tumult of the 1960s, absorbing the stylistic lessons of both New York (Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock) and of Europe (Jean Dubuffet, Wassily Kandinsky, and Antoni Tapiès). At one point, he was so taken by Arshile Gorky that his teacher reprimanded him—his art-crush nicely echoing Gorky’s infatuation with Picasso, 40 years earlier: “If he drips, I drip.” The biological theory of recapitulation—i.e.,that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, or individual development parallels the development of the species— applies to some artists on an individual scale.
Perlman: “I had to digest the entire history of visual art before I could come up with my own voice…. This was how I found myself…” More »
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CURRENT EXHIBITION at NANCY TOOMEY FINE ART
Mark Perlman A Study in Contrasts
Through June 15, 2024
NANCY TOOMEY FINE ART
1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 12pm to 4pm
By appointment only, please contact:
nancy@nancytoomeyfineart.com 415-307-9038
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