Marc Breslin introduces to the world a daring vote of simplicity with his ‘Veils’ exhibition at Anna Zorina Gallery in Los Angeles. In challenging the convention of beauty as needing to be colorful, the transcendental extension of his whites and blacks gives us a new idea, a better appreciation, of what oftentimes is negatively attributed to life. And that is the correspondence of black with death.

Indeed, the Cyclatic sculptures which the artist is informed by are typically found at funeral grounds in the ancient Aegean Sea. Yet we do not have the monsoon of moroseness, a dirge of defeat, a lachrymose leap to sway our perspectives towards melancholic pause. That is what makes this concept of beauty so strikingly original. It causes a softening of the nerves, of the tension from the work week and its havoc toward a calmness. That black can be soothing, relieving, when juxtaposed to a confident white obduration in all of the untitled works is a thrilling accomplishment – and yet how cerebrally imbibed this thrill is!

MARC BRESLIN
Untitled, 2023
oil stick and pencil on canvas
80 x 74.25 in (203.2 x 188.6 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Anna Zorina Gallery.

I suppose this is what makes this high art. It is in the riskiness of being blasé, trivial in form, yet nevertheless enveloping the subject with a newfound concept of harmony. Yes, this is the accomplishment: that harmony in black can be – after all this is what Mr. Breslin achieves – is a rarity.

MARC BRESLIN
Untitled, 2023
oil stick and pencil on canvas
74.25 x 68 in (188.6 x 172.7 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Anna Zorina Gallery.

And this gives us a sense of life-affirmation, where the premeditation of black has the sense of termination; of loss. Of course; but to realize that loss has the perception of disorder, of inanimation, of losing completeness, with the concept of harmony – order, balance, stability, peace, tranquility, etc. – gives us not a sternness in the dark palette, but again, what is inviting to realize, a novel form of color choice. A bold one, painted at its best with the large canvasses of approximating 6 square feet. This scale is not grandiose, but also not anemic in its standing. We are, therefore, experiencing the task of art, of relief in knowing that there is good.

For further details, please contact the gallery:

ANNA ZORINA GALLERY | LOS ANGELES
734 E 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
+1323-633-9700

info@annazorinagallery.com