Art on Campus - Mark Steven Greenfield
CAPS SMALL ART COLLECTION
MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD
Egungun: The Charlotte Observer, 2017
Mark Steven Greenfield
Archival Inkjet Print (Edition of Five)
50 x 40 inches
Location: Fine Arts Building, Second Floor
Mark Steven Greenfield's works concerns itself with the complexities of the African-American experience in contemporary society, speaking to personal as well as universal themes. While his earlier work dealt with the psychological effect associated with African-American stereotypes as characterized by blackface minstrelsy and black cartoon characters, his more recent body of work invoke the spiritual practices related to Egungun (Yoruban masquerades associated with ancestral figures) as a point of departure. Inspired by a residency in Brazil, the works depict contemporary Egungun, amalgamations of past and present, good and evil, positive and negative energies often enmeshed in a field of abstract calligraphy that becomes a pattern behind the figure produced via a methodology akin to "automatic writing" where line becomes positive energy in an interplay with negative space to create a neutral field. Greenfield frequently juxtaposes images drawn from current events - a shooting in Florida, or Charlotte - with geometric patterns, as in The Charlotte Observer, where a beaded-headdress masks the face of a sunglass-wearing dark-skinned figure holding a megaphone in each hand. Drawing from disparate sources and cultures, Greenfield presents an image of a powerful God-like figure surrounded by colorful, ornate and delicate patterns that appear like bursts of energy or complex microbes.
A native Angeleno, Mark Steven Greenfield studied under Charles White and John Riddle at Otis Art Institute. He went on to receive his Bachelor's degree in Art Education from California State University, Long Beach. To support his ability to make his art, he held various positions as a visual display artist, a park director, a graphic design instructor and a police artist before returning to school, graduating with Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles. From 1993 through 2010, he was an arts administrator for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; first as the director of the Watts Towers Arts Center and later as the director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. In 1998, he served as the Head of the U. S. delegation to the World Cup Cultural Festival in Paris, France and in 2002 he was part of the Getty Visiting Scholars program. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Arts Development Association, the Korean American Museum, and The Armory Center for the Arts, was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825 and currently serves on the board of Side Street Projects. Greenfield's work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art and the California African American Museum. Internationally he has exhibited in Thailand at the Chiang Mai Art Museum, in Naples, Italy at Art 1307, Villa Donato, the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea and the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, PRC. He is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award, Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant, the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship, the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency in Salvador, Brazil, and the McColl Center for Art+Innovation Residency. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts, and was artist-in-residence at California State University, Los Angeles. He currently teaches at Los Angeles City College.
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