Copyright © 2010 - 2017 Marin Abell. info@marinabell.org
My practice is fueled by a desire to en/joy my environment and culture through entanglement; my goal is to beguile communities in ways powerful enough to sustain attention and deliberate reflection. Often occurring in multiple iterations and locations, my projects welcome unforeseen and non-linear developments. Much of my work is evocative of the trickster that engages our world in ways that dispel the illusion of separateness. I embrace the absurd to destabilize habit, frequently pushing traditional materials (such as clay, ink and fabric) and aesthetic values (such as scale, harmony and duration) into newfangled zones. To entice audiences, I use bright colors-a technique honed by toy companies to engage children in play. At times I incorporate my physical body into my work to discover its pliability in the face of conditioning and constraints imposed by society, and to ascertain the limits of my own self-control. And on occasion I integrate impossibility in order to develop false hope, thereby questioning the notion of success. While such works are explorations in futility, activities and outcomes that are seemingly senseless are never wasted when followed by meaningful insight, and it is often the process of unlearning that is of ultimate worth. My work spans a diversity of subjects and media in order to address a broad spectrum, and in building space for the individual, I aim to nurture fresh and multifaceted awareness in the encounterer.
marin abell
