I am Just Here installation extends Mark Whalen‘s work and further explores the uncanny relationships between object and person and the peculiarities of different meanings. The exhibition will feature entirely new work made in his Los Angeles studio.
As we engage in purely graphic displays of joint attention, bodily actions communicate in parallel with the spoken word. I am Just Here at CAC Malaga located in Malaga, Spain will take place from 17 September – 28 November 2021.
Artist Mark Whalen’s sophisticated sculptures generously stack, merge and integrate everyday objects with the figure, engaging in a narrative highlighting the relation between the absurd and the mundane.
Whalen’s process begins simply with a pen and paper, as he maintains a continual flow of scribbled notes, which are often put away for months or even years before being referred back. Whalen later utilizes these initial written thoughts and adapts the concepts still relevant and interesting enough to pursue into drawings.
These sketches focus on exploring relationships between human form and everyday objects and aim to capture a moment in that juncture for an eventual final sculptural form. These illustrations are then adapted into digital renders and printed from 3D printers at the artist’s studio.
A process of trial and error often occurs to get each piece perfectly sized and engineered to fit together as if one entity.
Once the concept exists as a physical form, shaving down and smoothing out the imperfections to get the fabrication right begins; these maquettes are then cast in aluminum. The finalized segments of Whalen’s work are painted frequently in signature bold hues with specific chromatic details before they wrestled into their resolved configuration.
