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NEWS

 

News items regarding exhibitions, publications, opportunities relevant to the art work of Marcus Vincent.

 

Losing Ground series

In the traditional sense of the words, Losing Ground is described as a status of diminishment. The loss of what one might formerly have “had.” It denotes the not always enviable situation of reduction in area governed, decreased mental status or capacity, territory commanded through war or other means. It may also indicate a status of un-willful surrender of a thing or status once regarded as valuable or desirable.

 

For the past many decades, the quality of human life has vacillated with some areas of growth (particularly on the scientific front), but has also been challenged in its wholeness through biological jeopardy, increasing political divisiveness, and the forfeiture of truth based on empirical evidence as the foundation for societal mores in favor of special interest opinions among other alterations. The works in this series center on ideas of loss. Loss of sustainable environmental ecosystems. Loss of wholesome production of foods. Loss of health through human systems of exploitation of the earth. Loss of reason and truth as a basis for interaction within human culture. Loss of the basic ideas of human kindness that bound together people of disparate beliefs, traditions, and perspectives in the great American experiment. It is a lamentation in the face of an uncertain future that is a concoction of human origin and perpetuation.

 

It draws little attention today that those things upon which we depend for survival seem increasingly at risk. Certain political/societal currents are exerting reverses to major environmental protections that have been greatly reduced or eradicated. Quality of air, water, and soil have all come under attack. The impact of “alternate truth” promoted in some factions disables any reasonable discussion of even the current state of our biosphere. Global warming, once treated as an outright hoax by some, is now accepted with the disclaimer that humans have had no influence upon its appearance or progression. As a people, we seem unaware or unwilling to even consider the implications this misguided opinion has for us or our posterity.

 

The ravaging effects of a global pandemic which has already left millions of dead in its wake continues on to this day. The Covid-19 variant viruses bring with each new wave an accompanying wave of political posturing as to its veracity while spawning vicious partisan blaming. Wrapped in non-sequitur arguments, the world populations are torn this way and that with the only sure impact as divided beliefs, fear, uncertainty as to what is real and true. The emotional and psychological impact of this divisiveness is surely felt in the individual as well as the illness of the society that it threatens. This upheaval of personal peace is further exacerbated by an imperialist war in Europe with repeated threats of a nuclear holocaust.To be sure, we are losing much individually and collectively as a human species, and some fear this portends an apocalyptic end to humans. This body of work attempts to record and raise awareness of some of these losses in a way that is aesthetically satisfying while poetically decrying our status and trajectory. It is hoped that more awareness, and public participation will be able to slow and even reverse the scope and nature of the losses to humanity and our natural world.

 

In the Losing Ground exhibition projected for February 2023 in the Art & Design Gallery at Utah Valley University and beyond, Nancy Steele-Makasci (printmaker), and Marcus Vincent (painter) have blended their works in a somewhat unlikely juxtaposition, each addressing the topic from their unique vantage point, but with a unified purpose. Though the images may be engaging at first for their formal properties, they are subtle in exploring the dislocations in human well-beings as their main concern. Whether it is perspectives of the canned GMOs in food production, the toxic waste spills of mining overflow or air pollution the anguished cry of the loss of purity in our landscapes and in our lives resonates in each of the works. Vincent’s work posits abstractions drawn from many experiences and sources to investigate loss of life through war, disease and aggression, as well as loss of sanity and reason in the currents and eddies of a civilization in turmoil.

Spaces: Jarvis Rice Vincent

Three person exhibition at the of the Utah Division of Arts & Museums' Rio Gallery in Salt Lake City Utah. Spaces: Jarvis Rice Vincent, July 18 – August 22, 2014. Featured new works by Holly Jarvis (Weber State University), Andrew Rice (University of Utah), and Marcus Vincent (BYU, University of Utah, UVU).

 

"In the show Spaces artists Holly Jarvis, Andrew Rice, and Marcus Vincent investigate the collective need for the spaces we construct, inhabit, interact with and define ourselves by. We are all interconnected and a part of a larger collective, or as John Donne describes in his enduring poem, No Man Is an Island, ‘a piece of the continent.’ From personal spaces to larger, family and community spaces, it is paramount to our survival both individually and as a larger group. These spaces can provide protection or guidance, but also can create isolation by inhibiting access. Each artist is addressing these issues through various mediums, which create a dynamic show of diverse aesthetics.

Through drawing, painting, collage and digital materials, Holly Jarvis’ works illustrate a wandering, rambling mental landscape. These scenes can become interiors; they are deconstructed and spaces become void. Collaged materials shape into ambiguous, organic systems that dominate each work, ultimately resting on fields of color or emptiness.

Andrew Rice’s works on paper bridge the gap between drawing and painting. Using oil sticks, he approaches the pieces as a printmaker, working in multiple layers over each other. The end result is thick, heavy and dimensional on the paper. The physicality of the works for this show reflect the same banal urban landscapes loosely depicted- layers and layers built on top of each other, starting flat and changing over time with every added layer. 

The work of Marcus Vincent has been influenced by an almost instinctual response to spaces both in the material world but also from those private interior spaces we each inhabit. The works originate in an intuitive color scenario that is punctuated by later found structural forms that serve as space definers in one sense, and harken to architectural forms in another. Working largely in water-based media, the unpredictability and spontaneity of the medium facilitates an organic, loosely controlled impression, sopping the canvas with various viscosities of acrylic paints and pigment".

Residency at Robert Stuart Studio

Engaging a studio on the Beverly Street Studio building in Staunton, Virginia where Stuart occupies two studios, Vincent spent several weeks in the summer of 2013 residing with the Stuarts and developing a new body of acrylic and pigment works on paper. These works led to successful application to and inclusion in other exhibit opportunities.

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