Art Verité Gallery

How do you create art once you are unconstrained?

In Unconstrained, Mark Nativo’s exhibition of recent works, the artist gives us a taste of untethered freedom. With varying shades of gray and intense fields of black and white, he anchors recognizable figures and objects on familiar planes and then mars the surface with straight-edged lines and carefree smears of paint. Strange as some images may seem, they are not completely detached from our world; rather, it is this strangeness that resonates with our humanity and our natural appetite to do weird actions without judgment. Bodies dangle without fear of falling; ladders emerge from rough concrete holes; an armchair idly waits for someone to sit, while yet another chair hosts a figure already idly sitting.

Nativo surprises us with the appearance of realistically rendered flowers and leaves in grayscale, providing a soft contrast to his sharp planes and edges and breathing fresh life into otherwise harsh environments. Cacti find their space in broad daylight and under striped shadows. Flower petals hang delicately from a gracefully bending stalk. A banana tree unexpectedly sprouts from a corner. An anthurium mimics the appearance of a licking flame. A copse of trees peers out under impossibly twisted stairs. A dried rosebud bows in surrender to the natural cycles of death and decay.

To further underscore the freedom that the artist currently enjoys and seemingly flaunts in our direction, Nativo throws us a curveball by presenting selected abstract works: a series of assemblage pieces with images layered on canvas sheets, with rubble serving as background to shapes and lines sectioning its surface. He also presents what appears to be a portrait posing as a portrait, with the raw texture of the paint defining its features.

Undeniably showing another leap of progress in his interpretation of realities spliced and diced, the artist shows silent confidence in creating paintings that tease our consciousness, replete with images that refuse to engage in the drama that is black and white. With his brushstrokes steadfast in their expression of detail, soft renderings of graduated grays, and monochrome fields that go darker and deeper, defining curves, broken things, and shadows, he manages to tell visual narratives that do not require an attachment to materiality to evoke our curiosity and think headachingly profound thoughts; rather, each glance tells a different story. The artist paints without constricting our grasp on reality, and it is a refreshing outlook indeed.

Written by Kaye O’Yek