They are prints
They are pictures
They are about removing space.
....
Mario Correa:
"The Muslins" November 9th – December 22nd, 2012
@Redling, 6757 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038
They are paintings: hand mixed oil and enamel on un-stretched muslin, made upright by the walls they hang on. Their construction is self-reflexively reductive, with rough edges, exposed hanging apparatuses, and layered paint.
They are prints: each work is generated through a variation of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (black) color passes, creating a field of reveals and overlays, muscled on to the muslin substrate by the weight of Correa’s body. The wood printing blocks themselves are made from discarded worktables, broken from hours and hours of use.
They are pictures: of labor, of repeated gestures, of task-based work. Made during his employment as a woodworker, each line captures the route of a drill, router, chisel, or saw over his Masonite work-surface. With this series Correa eschews his previous investigations in mark making (where the mechanics of the artist’s gesture – measured, deft, awkward, or random – were made as an extension of the body) in favor of the surplus marks of a different kind of work, the byproduct of a different kind of labor.
They are about removing space: between the works and the gallery walls; between the layers of paint and the raw canvas; between Correa’s day job and his practice; between the paintings and the bookshelves, cabinets, tables, chairs, beds… that formed them.
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