Alongside Maya

The art of John Marin has been taking a great deal of inspiration from Eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions, exploring the visual possibilities  in  the  wealth  of  wisdom  emerging  from  these  traditions  while incorporating his own interpretations of their resonance in contemporary society. His sustained engagement with these philosophies has also brought him to navigate a terrain dealing with  issues  of identity, the individual’s internal struggles, the burdens and baggage of existence, and  seeking  life’s  purpose, among many others. In this solo exhibition, he converses with  the  Vedic  concept  maya,  an  illusion created by the magical powers of divinities which obstructs a human’s encounter with reality. Using this concept as a central theme, he presents a creative take on the  age-­‐old reflection about the illusory  nature  of  human perception.

He comes up with portraits that emphasize the eyes as windows to the truth. In the compositions, the field surrounding the eyes is littered with distractions in the form of chaotic tangling of strokes, creating a blurry plane only cleared around the subject’s vision. The individuals in the portraits seem to be  peeking through holes, their piercing gazes becoming invisible forces that penetrate the layer of mesh that renders them partially hidden from the viewer. With this intervention, the artist looks back to the association of the sense of sight to notions of truth, reality, illusion, and deceit, both in the visual and philosophical sense. Each portrait may speak about mediated forms of encountering and experiencing the world, be it through the handiwork of deities or spiritual forces, or through the lens of today’s technologies. These impediments from reality are bound to be transcended only by an extraordinary vision or a sharp, critical eye.

Curated by Ruel Caasi and in collaboration with The Working Animals Art Projects