Here is he review of Mark's exhibition Trouble Set Me Free that I wrote in 2010. Images from the exhibition may be found at this link
MARK MCDEAN: TROUBLE SET ME FREE
Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Southbank
Julie Clarke © 2010
I'm looking at Mark McDean's
artworks in an exhibition entitled Trouble Set Me Free (Curated by Catherine Bell)
at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery at Southbank this afternoon. Mark is beside me
and I'm aware with every comment that I make, that it is HIS
experience and pain contained in the works I view. Each a remnant of
his past trauma, each holds a special place in his memory.
The skull guard that
he wore for protection after craneo-surgery, the pillow-slip bloodstained
from a small puncture drain hole at the base of his head, a
crocheted shawl in muted colors given to him by friends and
the Walter van Bierendonck T/Shirt that he wore that night,
two and a half years ago when he fell into an unmarked
ditch in the road.
The terror, the blood clots,
the operations and Mark had to learn to walk and
talk again. The T/Shirt cut from his body in the emergency
room is sutured together like the chest cavity of an autopsied corpse ~
the stainless steel staples form a scar on this disembodied skin
that hangs in the gallery space like a body spent. They are emblematic
of the staples that held his fractured skull together
whilst it healed. Part of the 'Gold Team' bold type imprinted
on the lower edge of the shirt depicting footballers, disappears in the
folds and so the text presents as 'Old Tear' ~ a reminder of past
anguish. The eyes fill
and it's a strange absence, one we also witness in the oval void in the middle
of
the shawl carefully folded, in half and in half again to form an
uneven square ~ evoking the four facilities of the mind ~ the Will, the Mask, the Creative Mind and the Body
of Fate. They're all depicted here in one way or another either
through the artifacts or, the conspicuous shadows on the wall. But
there's protection too, in the solace that things from
childhood bring. The whirly windmill, a bright and
cheery hospital gift, is transformed into a six-petal contraption
covered in another skin ~ a silvery coat~ a prima material of clarity
and rebirth that resonates strongly with the tiny kitsch buttons and
gaudy icons stuck to the helmet scaffolding. We all loved those
things when we were kids, they made things 'all pretty'
again. The homely comfort of the shawl crafted in soft baby hues,
its yellow layer referencing the sour lemon yellow of the plinth, speaks
to the first color that Mark remembered when he woke from his coma.
There's a raw, honesty and integrity in the materials Mark has
used in this exhibition. The pillow case, with an
almost perfect circular dried blood stain shrieks of rationality
against the erratic marks made in an attempt to trace the scars on
Mark's damaged head - here, they are sewn and inscribed on
the almost white surface of the pillow case. I
immediately thought of CyTombly ~ his erratic scribbles, his
ambiguous mark making and this took me back to being at RMIT two
decades ago, where we were told never to use large blocks of
the color yellow in our paintings because it was
associated with madness, sickness or fear. And yet, how can this
be so, think of Van Gogh's yellow wildflowers or the speckled dots in his
Starry Night.
I left this exhibition feeling like I'd witnessed something precious
and fragile ~ the exhibition, which also contains the works of five
other artists is on until 3 July, 2010.
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