Paris London Hong Kong is excited to present Meadowlands, a two-person presentation of works by Chicago-based artists Max Capus and Mat Mancini organized by Marissa Dembkoski.
Meadowlands explores physical sites that are rendered invisible. Devoid of human presence, these spaces offer fertile ground for mining memory. Assessing the perceptual and functional mutability of objects, the works interrogate the potential for material things to affect us emotionally, physically, and socially. Titled after a New Jersey landfill, the exhibition considers places throughout the United States that despite their charming names, serve as interstitial and industrially driven regions—the Northeast in particular, where both artists came of age. These spaces, often overlooked, offer an opportunity to bear witness to the imperceptible.
By layering images and mark-making on top of mounted, printed images, the artists reflect on the past through appropriated and invented imagery. Max Capus' paintings attempt to reveal his own hazy yet cherished memories. His imagination, teeming with vulnerabilities and contingencies, depends on the intimate connections of his lived experiences. Capus' double-circle panels layer interiors and landscapes over close-cropped portraits, resisting the notion of an inner world that is self-sufficient.
Mat Mancini's mobile fills the gallery's ceiling, incorporating images that the artist has cut, collaged, scanned, reprinted, and spliced into new compositions. The plasma-cut shapes descending from the mobile draw on diverse sources such as old-school graphic design from 1990s skate and surf publications, color-block fashion, and the artist's own collection of ghost costume and cartoon iconography.
