Fresh
Mark Titmarsh's recent show continues the obsessive iconography he has established during the last three years – the emblematic face; the Klein blue and the red monochrome washes; the eclectic referencing to both art-historical and philosophical figures; and the continued use of found objects as the base for his anti-perspective depth painting.
Titmarsh's painting is a seductively passive viewing experience, despite the sometimes overloaded surface. Each layer of image is carefully applied and even the exploding expressionist brush stroke confirms the presence of the artist's shaky hand. Titmarsh is a collagist whose background in film making is signaled not only by the careful arrangement of elements, as in the film editing technique, but also in the continuation of his many thematic concerns.
This show, as well as his contributions to Perspecta, is significant for the emergence of his newfound painterly exuberance. A viewer of Titmarsh's work in recent years would no doubt be confronted by the basic technique he had used to convey his ideas. To use the most straightforward technique is to foreground the content over the style. Here, however, we find that Titmarsh has begun his most painterly period thus far. We are confronted with some intriguing problems.
Titmarsh has stated that he does not wish his work to be discussed within the context of appropriation and quotation. This leaves me with no option but to contemplate the surface of these paintings and I find an amusingly benign face looking back at me. These works speak so strongly of their maker's hand that it seems almost impossible to regard them as anything more than texts to be deciphered. There are surfaces here that express a love of painting