Information
Mark Nader：Doublespeak
Curator：Shijian
Academic Director：Alun Rowlands
Opening Reception：2016.11.04 3:00 pm
Duration：2016.11.04 – 2016.12.21
Venue：Tong Gallery+projects
Tong Gallery+Projects is pleased to announce the opening of Mark Nader :Doublespeak on November 4th, 2016. This is our first overseas artist’s exhibition.
Mark Nader graduated from the prestigious Central Saint Martin’s Arts and Design College. His British-Mexican mixed identity makes his paintings simultaneously reveal characteristics that are cross-cultural, cross-situational, and cross-temporal. This is, in his own words, to “form a narrative of sorts between these two cultures” through the structure of painting.
The upcoming exhibition is comprised of Mark Nader’s recent painting practice. Try to elucidate the terrain of painting and collage, demonstrating a sound understanding of transitive image forms, the combinative dialogue that surface and seriality proffer. His vertiginous and beguiling work attempts to ask key questions of painting in the context of an information age. representation can only be partial and narratives can be pieced together through disparate material and temporal fragments.
Mark Nader‘s first solo show in China Doublespeak presented his new works including Room series and Royal Collection series. In his figurative paintings, people may discern some fragments from Mexican, European, Chinese or Internet visual cultures: Ionic columns, a Chinese cloud pattern or a Mexican cow head mask. These elements have been summoned together by Nader and they are figuring out how to relate with each other despite their huge differences.
For Nader, the painting process is an exploration into himself: the family’s endless migration from Lebanon to Mexico and then to Paris and Britain. The family history flows from his ancestors and when Nader looked back, he revived the lost personal connections with the remote lands, strange cultures and untold stories. Nader began to dig into the cultural systems he has been exposed to: Mexican Codex and masks, European 18thcentury classical paintings, the video games, the Internet and Nader’s visits to China. These visual systems differentiate themselves from each other in perspective, colour, material and technique but they are all witness to a history. When they are weaved together in Nader’s paintings, they form intriguing alternative narratives. Looking at these paintings is like excavating mixed stratums and it demands patience to find some clue and follow that to make your own interpretation into the scene.
Nader has also noticed people’s reliance on the Internet during his research process. He highlighted this contemporary human condition by juxtaposing the English work title and the google-translated Spanish title that sometimes doesn't make sense. Such kind of twist and humour could also be found in his paintings.
After graduating from Central Saint Martins, Nader worked for four years in MDM, an art fabricator making sculptures and installations for artists like Tracey Emin and Anish Kapoor. After that, Nader returned to work as an artist and had more time to spend alone with his canvas since 2012. Currently, he co-runs two artist studios in London and he is also a lecturer in the art department of Reading University.
X: Xiaoyi Nie
M: Mark Nader
X: Maybe we could start from the title of thisexhibition. Why did you pick up the word Doublespeak?
M: Doublespeak’s dictionary term means “deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure language.”The etymology of this word comes from George Orwells 1984 and the word has expanded into the everyday vernacular,especially for political speeches. I feel this fits with the intentions of thepaintings and the research behind them. The language I develop becomes obscureand although based in reality, it begins to form new narratives. Sometimesmisleading or altering historical reasoning.
X:I also see Doublespeak as a guidelinefor the audience, encouraging them to find the contradictions and tensions inyour works. In the Room series, you have reproducedsome real architectural spaces with fictional scenes. How do you create thespaces and the scenes?
M: The Rooms and narratives are formed in layers; they are collaged from anorganic process of research. The starting point is always the spaces, that aresourced from my own documentation, and the history of the space begins ahaphazard leap from different images to form the story behind the architectureand the people or things inhabiting it. This is informed by different thingsposted online; maybe a link on a news site, a current meme or a social mediatirade. This layering is deliberate and complicated as the spaces highlight along history of cultural iconography.
X: Is iconography a very important source foryour creating?
M: Iconography is very important, not necessarysymbolic but having that historical background begins to build a narrativearound the paintings. For this particular series, one of the main influenceswas based around the Codex Mendoza.This is a book created after the 1521 Spanish invasion. It was commissioned bythe Spanish to depict daily life of the Aztecs. The style and type of drawingwas very typical of the glyphic writings around that time. After this we seehow imagery changes over the years where power and wealth begin to influencethe culture. The iconography of the image is constantly changing too.
X: You also mentioned the Internet onlineculture. Could you please give an example of one painting in which the Internetsources influenced the painting’s content or form? Also how do you think ofhumans’ relationship with the Internet?
M: A lot of the works have varying degrees ofInternet detritus involved in it. Some are obvious in their depiction of memeslike Perroin a Panda (2013, Oil on canvas, 60x 60cm). Others are subtler in the image making. Internet images I feelare the modern day glyphs, an enlightening insight into the contemporarythinking and language.
X: In your early paintings like Grasa Dama (2013, Oil on canvas, 150 x150cm), it seemed that you had already developed a strong interest inarchitectural spaces at that time. How do you find about your fascination aboutbuildings?
M: I am definitely obsessed with olderbuildings. There is something beautiful and disturbing about them. Elements ofclass, wealth, colonialism and fashion all feed into the exterior and interiorof a space, these layers of history and propaganda are so vast and complicatedI can't help but get drawn in.
X: You have also set up and are running someartist studios by yourself. How does this experience influence you?
M: The current building my studios are in hasbeen a big influence. I think this is the norm with any artist and theirstudios. They become very personal little worlds to collect, store and reflectin. So having a studio in a Georgian house with shutters and old oak flooringmeans I have to submit to the history of the space.
X: Maybe because you have got moreunderstandings of architecture, compared with your paintings in 2012, thebackground spaces in your new paintings are far more complicated and thefigures seems calmer.
M: The spaces begin to inform the rest of thework's narrative as I research into the history of different buildings orrooms. I think my own attempts to unpick a personal narrative of identity leadinto a better understanding of the rich history. This being how a space,building or room amplifies ideas behind trade, cultural borrowing or theft andeven class, wealth and fashion.
X: This painting Blue Room is placed as the first in your website’s 2016 paintingspage. Is one your favourite? It seems to me that there are many symbols andmetaphors in it.
M: I wouldn’t say there are more symbols andmetaphors in this particular piece. I think that the painting functions as avalid work without any figures. There is enough of the codex and textilepatterns in the work to put forward a narrative.
X: Could we look at one painting more closely?In Mercado(Market place), it seems that youhave juxtaposed a European building (Ionic columns supporting the triangularpediment) with a specially patterned ground. Do these architectural elementshave some references?
M: The narrative from the building comes morefrom the location of Venice and the history of the space itself. It wasoriginally the library of a rich merchant. This began a narrative of trade, inthe market place also with the codex items too. The rugs pattern was createdspecifically for trade too.
X: How about the figures standing in front ofthe vegetable stalls? Why only the one facing the audience wears mask? It seemsthat the rest of these figures are not the same kind of people with the onewearing mask.
M: The masks are an extension of a culturalarts craft movement (made for Aztec rituals that were later converted toChristian Saints) in Mexico. Predominantly used for storytelling andceremonies. They sometimes act as confirmations of narratives, but they alsocan be more literal. Here the cow's head was an extension of the market items.The history behind the masks again are quite interesting to me as they wereupdated when the Spanish invaded. They became part of the forced conversion ofan entire culture.
X: How do you see the invasion of Spain intoMexico? As a European(if you agree with this identity), but with familyhistories in Mexico, do you feel some tension or burden from the colonialhistory?
M: You cannot avoid colonialism when lookingat the historical implications of architecture, place, culture etc., there’s atension looking back at that. I don’t think my role in painting the narrativecan be one of an apologist. I feel that my role is better suited to posingdifferent scenarios and histories. Imagining the world with differentoutcomes.
X: The last unidentified items in thispainting are the two-dimensional items gathered at the feet of the man withcow's head… What are they?
M: These are market items taken from variousMexican Codices. These are amazing documents that were produced over manyhundreds of years. The books functioned as propaganda, a glyphic representationof gods, rituals and daily life.
X: So actually you have gathered relevantvisual elements in different cultural systems into the same painting. Thethree-dimensional European building background contradicts so obviously withthe two-dimensional Mexican items. But on the other hand, I feel they areaffecting each other. For example, the European statues have picked up thebright colours of the rugs and the Mexican items. There is an manipulatedinteraction between the different cultural systems on the painting.
M: Thank you! There is a balancing act that Ihave to compose when working towards a painting.
X: This interaction has possibly been moredemonstrated in your Royal Collection series,where colourful oil drawings contrast with the black and white prints. What arethese old prints about? Do you how how exactly old are they?
M: The prints are dated to 1906. They areprints of the Royal Collection of Paintings at Buckingham Palace. They arearchival prints of the paintings at the palace.
X: In your works, you have drawn masks on thefaces of some figures and also covered the black and white rugs with colourfulpatterns, in some occasions given the figures new clothes. Do these masks andnew rugs also have meanings? Do you have references for them or do you createyour own masks or rugs?
M: These masks are Mexican ceremonial masks.As previously mentioned, the history of the masks is very important as anindicator of historical narratives. The rugs are all sourced from variousplaces and they will be either Persian, Mexican or Chinese in their design.
X: Have you kept records of the originalprints?
M: I haven't as I find the altering is animportant part of rewriting the history of the original works themselves. Ilike the idea of forming an alternate reality, one where some strangeAnglo-Sino-Latin American culture existed.
X: By replacing the original images withbright-coloured and exotic masks, rugs and clothes, you have createdstrangeness in the classic European painting copies which have been familiar topeople. Do you intentionally try to achieve this de-familiarization effect?
M: Yes, I think this follows on from theprevious answer. In creating this alternative culture, I want a sense of theunknown with iconography that is familiar but jarring with the archivalpainting prints.
X: I found reflecting upon thede-familiarization might also push people to realize a fact that what they havebeen familiar with (like the classic European paintings) are so limited and ourreal lives have always been a mixture of different things. Our “familiarity”might be the false imagination demanding to be penetrated.
M: I’m sure we all have certain levels ofingrained cultural preconceptions. Again the familiarity may change when thework is exhibited in China. Culturally there are different connotations withthis sort of painting in different countries.
X: Yes for me this kind of old Europeanpainting just reminds of the term Art History. Those images may appear in atypical art history textbook. Speaking about this, I still have a question foryou about being an artist. Your new work Habitations Arabe (Arabic Rooms) is set in an artist house with a stereotypedpainter sitting before a canvas, but also with a guy wearing jaguar mask. Ishe/she also an artist?
M: Well the other artist is a self-portrait ofsorts following Nagualism, the transformation into animals due to the behaviourin their life. Transformation being the focal point, especially in my role asan artist. The jaguar is seen as a shifter as an animal that can move between worlds.My role as a painter is to move between these narratives and worlds I explore.
X: How do you see yourself as an artist? Whatdoes painting mean to you?
M: This is not a short answer as it’s not asimple progression to sustain and live making work that you feel retains anintegrity behind it. In terms of why I paint, it is first and foremost becauseof the materiality. But also the narratives in painting have centuries’reference, the history becomes a tool to construct stories. This allows somegreat freedoms in subversion.
X: My last question is about your connectionwith China. What is your favourite thing in Beijing? How do you think ofChina’s influence on you, if there is any?
M: As I travel heremore, the influence is becoming more prominent as I absorb more of the culturaliconography and the architectural history. There are many things I enjoy here,but I feel like I should see more of China.
