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MABE - Modern Art Build Exploration

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The themes here are obvious - building and exploring, either at the same time or separately. To start off, Tower Coalescence takes a familiar archetype, the dust closing in around the center, and places a huge vertical tower right in the middle of it. Now, there is a focus to this work - that powder is coalescing around this tower, which stands string in the meantime, proud of its existince and even seeming to welcome the challenge. Next, Hillcliff Continuance portrays, from right to left, a hill cresting into a plateau, which suddenly drops off. A pair of thick horizontal bars continue outwards, sticking out of the cliff face, around which perhaps the remainder of that plateau may be built. Perhaps the black object at the right edge of the image is a figure aiming to capitalize on this, even. A Surface Over Lasers is ultimately focused on the contrast of its background to its foreground, but its background is made unique by the cohesiveness of its vertical and horizontal lines, which are all solid, primary colors. The foreground seems to be covering them up, and moreover, may be made up of chunks, deliberately put in place to cover that background. Perhaps that's the activity in which the two figures in this foreground are engaging. Strong Designer is the compositionally simplest work in this collection; there are only a few parts to the work, and those parts are very deliberate. The 'designer' that the title indicates is the black figure with its center towards the right edge of the image, reaching inwards to draw a precise line across the dark gray surface, joining the yellow and violet vertical lines that it has already placed there. But my personal favorite work this week is A Bundle of Sticks, a unique archetype against a black square. This many vertical lines, clustered together with no deviation, and all with the same texture and vertical emphases, make a strong impression. The background serves as an excellent contrast, with the white box giving both a sense of scale and a contrast to the bundle of lines next to it. The work is passive, not attempting to tell a particular story, but just to portray a self-evident idea. Please enjoy!


A Bundle of Sticks


A Surface Over Lasers


Broken Columntop


Hillcliff Continuance


Perpendicular Foundations


Popsicles and Distance


Strong Designer


Tower Coalescence