Kelly Mark

Kelly Mark, Artist Talk, MacKenzie Art Gallery.

Kelly Mark is an artist whose work is currently being shown in conjunction with the Situation Comedy show that is currently on at the MacKenzie. I went to Mark’s lecture not familiar with her work (I had not fully explored the show at that time) but I was overly impressed with her repertoire. I enjoyed the humour and beauty that Mark sees in relatively mundane, banal activities of the everyday such as time card punching or spoon collecting (but instead, Mark collects plain old table knives which every one she has stolen if she did not already have it). I also found her drawings entertaining where she literally covered chairs, tables, pictures and still lives with graphite markings made with a pencil. One body of work that I interesting was titled “Glow House” which was an installation where Mark filled a house with about 50 televisions, tuned them all to the same channel at night in the dark house. The house seemed to be pulsing with all of televisions flashing from scene to scene. I love how Mark takes a simple everyday occurrence or object and seems to make a spectacle out of it or monumentalize it. I also found the element of surprise interesting particularly in “Glow House” or the idea of the unexpected audience.

http://www.ireallyshould.com/