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| Mark McDean: The Dark Past 2012 |
I've just received in the mail Mark McDean's recent artwork response in our Collisons project. He explains:
"The materials are recycled crochet, string, acrylic paint, matte medium & glue. The working title is 'the dark past. I still love the concept of
the big garlanded medal as something heroic. In this piece, I have
decided to abstract the wearability of the materials.
The 'collar' is made from remnants of a crocheted blanket. I have coated
it in heavy black acrylic, with a matte glaze component - to possibly
dull it down. It is a piece I would love to wear as it could possibly be
seen as a collar of contempt and freedom
at the same time. Focusing again on fabric and it's emotional and
memorial contact. I would appreciate some viewer response".
My immediate reaction to the work is that it appears as an inverse of my crocheted black merkin, for my merkin was black and soft and this artwork is quite hard to the touch. Both have strands of material falling from the central construct, however the threads that fall from Mark's work are intertwined and tangled. Mark has certainly evoked strength in this work and the notion of yoke as burdensome shows through in this object that he would love to wear around his neck. However, there's absolutely no way that his head could fit through the tiny opening, so I'm thinking that the work is definitively about restraint and the way that the past can keep us in captivity if we allow it to. Having said that, I regard this as an important work for Mark as the 'remnants of a crocheted blanket' are a kind of a burnt offering to previous artworks such as those shown in Trouble Set Me Free. The collar then is memory, but freedom from those memories that caused pain.
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