Mark Strickland :: Indomitable Spirit
Posted on April 25, 2007 by C Johnson
Art
For about three years I was the most spoiled art fan in the world. I worked smack in the middle of London’s west end and was literally a fifteen minute walk from The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, The Guildhall Gallery, The Somerset House, County Hall’s Dali Permanent Collection and the Saatchi Galleries, not to mention the countless independent back alley galleries that littered Coven Garden. So my lunch break was a rather routine affair: grab a sandwich, walk to the gallery of my fancy and indulge: renaissance, post modern, impressionism, and surrealism— the possibilities were inexhaustible. (And free, thanks to the grace of HRM the Queen.)
So now that I’m living in Lala Land, I am still adjusting to the fact that even the supermarkets aren’t a ten-minute walk, let alone an art gallery! So every time I stumble across a new exhibit here in Los Angeles that I can’t help but feel nostalgic. A friend of mine invited me to attend the opening of local artist Mark Strickland’s “Indomitable Spirit” exhibition show in Pasadena.
Strickland’s show Friday night was an emotional and, at times, overwhelming experience. Not because of the sheer size of the show (the collection consisted of around thirty pieces) and not for the brilliance of the venue (it was held in the unimpressive administration building for a charity called Learning Works), but rather for the intensity and power of Strickland’s work.
Strickland, who has taught at Pasadena’s renowned Art Center College of Design for thirty years, is noted for his soulful, provocative paintings. His “Indomitable Spirit” exhibition consists of large-scale oil murals on canvas that are thoroughly unabashed in their often-difficult subject matter. They arrest the eye and provoke thought with their challenging and angry statements on what modern society has done to the human spirit. The titular main piece of the exhibit is an impressive twenty-one feet of twisting, anguished bodies and deep, sickly greens and yellows. Strickland has weaved words of Elie Wiesel’s Pulitzer prize winning account of the Holocaust, Night, amongst the torment: “Man comes close to God through the questions he asks him… but we don’t understand his replies because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die. The real answers you will find only within yourself.”
Strickland’s murals address the human predicament in what he calls ‘a world gone mad with inhumanity’. One of his pieces, entitled The Human Condition, is a nightmarish orgy of shapes and shadows, amidst a garish red background that hints of the inner circle of Dante’s inferno. Strickland doesn’t mix words, so to speak, when it comes to expressing exactly what he thinks about the type of society we’re living in. The piece was in a way frightening, but endlessly fascinating— as was Strickland’s entire show.
To see some of Mark’s work, check out his website.
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