Mark Acetelli, photo by Steve Elam
Artplex Gallery will present “Mark Acetelli: Surface of a Dream,” a solo exhibition showcasing the works of Detroit-born artist Mark Acetelli. His multifaceted artistry has been influenced by his upbringing in an artistic household, where he was encouraged to explore various forms of creative expression. Acetelli’s works are an amalgamation of introspection and the complexities of love, loss, birth, and transformation. The exhibition will feature his recent works, which include abstractions of land- and seascapes in dialogue with Rothko’s influential oeuvre. The show runs from April 22 – April 28, 2023. An artist reception will be held on Saturday, April 22, 2023, from 4 – 6 PM. Artplex Gallery, located at 7377 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA.
“By distilling the painting down to its barest essence of color, composition, and form, I seek to express the maximum with the minimal. Thus, retaining a simplicity that cuts through the clutter to achieve a deeper visual dialog with the viewer.”
Mark Acetelli traces his interest in creative practice to his mother’s passion for painting and has explored many forms of creative expression including music, painting, photography, and poetry. The artist’s work is inspired by the intensely personal, introspective journey of life, and he seeks to evoke a feeling rather than a defined image. He describes the context of his work as “simple expressions of complex thoughts, created by capturing the physical mixed with the spiritual.” Acetelli additionally refers to his work as “Absence and Presence” believing that something or someone can be gone, while a presence remains.
Using traditional brushes, palette knives, rags, and even his hands to apply paint to the canvas, Acetelli works in a visceral extension of that thought process. Continuously building up and tearing down the surface of the canvas, adding and subtracting layers to achieve greater clarity of emotion. He primarily works with oils and encaustics, and each layer adds to the narrative and depth of the painting. “During this creative process, I lose my attachment to the end result, this allows me to create freely and openly as possible and to communicate where the conscious and the unconscious intertwine”.
Acetelli has an immense appetite for consuming as much knowledge as possible and frequently refers to art history’s masters to find intellectual footing for his own visual language. These most recent works are the artist’s series of abstracted land- and seascapes in dialogue with art historical titan Mark Rothko. He uses multiple thin layers of transparent pigments, intuitively blurring the surface to capture ephemeral, often fleeting, encounters that pass unnoticed
