Additional Paintings Mark Flood and John Kleckner

 

Never has defacement been so unabashedly stabby and consumer-culture critical as with Houston-based artist Mark Flood, nor as minutely crafted as with the Berlin-based American artist John Kleckner.

 

Mischief-maker, identities specialist and sub-lingual alchemist Mark Flood layers various media and signs to render their meaning highly problematic, often ascorbic, sometimes bitingly astute; street signs are literally defaced with phrases, often conciously misspelled, that speak to the deepst subconscious desires of humans and consumers; celebrity posters mangled to leave little recognizable in these public icons.

 

John Kleckner employs a draftsman's scalpel of detailed incision upon every fold, crease, tear or slough of flesh of his characters, whom his meticulous ink drawings present in various stages of metamorphosis, framed by and often entangeld in menacing and magical nature-scapes. His minute lines, magnificent detail and portentous symbolism evoke 15th-century etchings and yet take as their core the present-day tortures of the psyche: Modern-day zombies, obviously staged Horror-movie gore, and bruised superheros are some of the defaced humanoid forms that people his compositions.

 

Additional Paintings  by John Kleckner and Mark Flood will be on view at Peres Projects at ReMap2  (15 Leonidou, Athens) through July 26, 2009.