Mark Walker (UK, 1988) is an Artist currently located in Berlin. He graduated from the UAL Camberwell with a 1st class BA in painting and the Staedelschule, sculpture class with a Meisterschule.
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Mark Walker
Berlin
Valume - nnausea
Valume
Group exhibition at EXGIRLFRIEND Gallery Lankwitzerstr. 14, 12107 Berlin, Germany
Artists: Margrit Barner, Alexander Norton, Mark Walker Curated by Exgirlfriend
February 21st – March 15th 2020
The works for this exhibition are from the series ‘nnausea’ this series started from a makeshift street weapon, used in the north of England, made by gluing two blades either side of a coin. The two cuts from the two blades are so close that the skin in between them dies, because it can’t heal the same way a single cut heals. This weapon is intended for permanently scarring, rather than causing a grievous injury to the victim.
That nauseous feeling you possibly have in your stomach after thinking about this mutilation is the source the works radiate out from, probing this physical repulsive reflex.
By elongating the weapon’s technique spirals are formed using 2 pence coins and razorblades alternatively until a value of £5, £10 or £20 is hit. The fineness of the blades makes them almost imperceptible form the side, giving great variations to the sculpture from different angles. The full series consists of seven sculptures adding up to a value of £100. These sharp economical waveforms lie on sickbeds for pedestals, as if they are also there from ill health.
Hanging gauzes divide the sick spirals, some doubled-over producing a moire effect. Used simultaneously as image, background and divider, to give the feeling of privacy to the viewing of sculptures. Working with connections between physical characteristics, sensual inputs and cerebral perception; such as in ‘unnamable’ the curtains are dyed brown and purple using, the antiseptic, iodine, not only to dye the fabrics but also for the smell of the chemical infused into the fabric which can provoke immediate nausea. Using textures and materials that relate to the viewer’s sense of touch, sight and smell to give a bodily experience through sculpture, a corporeality and connectivity is established symbolically and sensitively with the (literal) chemistry of the objects.
nnausea
