Language systems of counter ellipses (So weary now the party’s over) by Mark Gowing

Size (cm): 155 x 124
Polymethyl methacrylate, acrylic and graphite on book covers mounted on board, framed
This work uses abstract language systems in combination with the artist’s written texts about the end of youth, to create rhythms of formally abstracted forms and geometric relationships that relate to the nature of the written word and the history of geometric abstraction. As its ground, the work features a repetition of covers from a book called Young Animals, sourced from several countries as to take advantage of the different covers in each territory. The contrasting intervention of layered geometric form examines these books as containers of language, and presents the artist’s abstracted inner narratives as compositions in tonal contrast with the concepts embedded in the ready-made ground.