Gauntlet: Loyal Gallery

GAUNTLET is Mark Thomas Gibson’s first solo exhibition in Europe. Gibson is highly regarded in a new wave of figuration. Following his solo exhibition at Fredericks and Freiser in New York this Fall, Gibson was highlighted in Frieze Magazine’s article “Acts of Recognition: A new wave of figurative painting in recent New York exhibitions prompts critical questions about which bodies we depict, for whom and to what end” by David Geers. In this new body of work at Loyal, Mark Gibson conceptualizes the image of a world ravaged by a deluge. The flood is depicted in the exhibition’s four large-scale paintings on canvas and a large drawing comprised of 40 individual works which together make up a single image of a body of water rendered in black ink.

‘The paintings are inspired by drawings I made from the summer of 2016 through spring 2017, a lot of that time post the 2016 Election. I feel like the world was living in the wake of a massive disaster. The paintings are a translation of the feeling of ruin and loss of that moment and the years that have passed. I feel we are in a critical moment.

I feel like I’ve been running a gauntlet. Everything that felt logical or functional has been tossed into chaos. The larger world is madness and my country is being run by a madman. Everything comes into question, my politics, morality, history, love, friends, and work. Nothing is sacred and the volume is cranked to 11.

After a disaster there’s a brief period of time, it’s a silence gap. It’s the point where we can make a choice on how are we going to move forward. The paintings represent an opportunity to present that almost sublime open moment for the viewer. We are all in this together and we will sink or swim as a civilization if we don’t figure this out.’

— Mark Thomas Gibson, April 2018