PAINTINGS

Chinatown Soup is pleased to present Paintings, an exhibition of abstract form, color block, and textural experimentation by artist-in-residence Marc Ferraro. Please join us for an opening reception on Saturday, July 6 from 6-9pm. Paintings is Marc’s solo debut and will be on view through July 14, 2019. Now, a message from the artist:

This body of work is instinctual. It reveals painting as an intuitive, psychosomatic experience. Certain forms, colors, and applications of paint call to me without explanation. I believe that they reflect my fascination with different genres, such as landscape, still life, abstraction, and color field. I let a painting unfold in any number of these directions. Through improvisation, I arrive at unexpected structures and compositions. Paintings made this way are built slowly and without a clear plan.

Out of an active network of marks put down on canvas, defined forms may emerge. Experimenting with applying and layering color enables these elements to take on a life of their own. A variety of relationships both contentious and harmonious keep me interested.

Stacked, propped, draped, caressing, stumbling in -

Static and moving,

Floating or nailed to the wall.

I watch my own hand create beyond my conscious intention, hoping the qualities of these impulses translate through my medium.

The result of this method is often ambiguous. Persistent flatness confuses space, making it unclear what comes forward or recedes so that space surrounding an identified object loses importance. All segments gain equal representation. Heavily worked areas take on dense textures like a rug or painted rocks, enriching simplified shapes. For me, these textures allude to paths, buildings, sculptures, limbs, vessels, and the sky. Other texturizing is reminiscent of shoes or plant life. It’s possible these paintings are reducible to my projections, and then I wonder whether anything is truly abstract.

Marc Ferraro (b. 1994 Evanston, IL) earned a BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. He has participated in group exhibitions in Ann Arbor and Detroit. Currently, he lives and works in New York.