John Marin’s Tourists navigate time, tide, and transience

In an exercise of being, it helps to remember impermanence. Flexibility is a power move.

John Marin’s black-and-white oil portraits are straightforward portraits that reflect on the fleeting nature of life and all the moments that make it up. For him, a very significant memory that could happen within a second or a feeling that could last for days, or months or even for a lifetime.adidas online shop custom jersey nfl shops nike air jordan 6 cheap sports jerseys best human hair wigs custom football uniforms adidas outlet online lovense sex toy nike air max correlate custom jersey nike air max excee womens cheap lace front wigs sex toy shops adidas yeezy slides

Mildly reminiscent of photos of historical archives, the artist’s paintings are both personal and universal, using small but significant scenes that wax nostalgia from an inner space. A man trying to catch the sun. A figure in front of some graffiti. A fence and some flora. An old, retired car. A portrait of a family vacation. Figures resting in a poorly installed hammock. Scenes that seem mundane, but are brimming with rich memories and ruminations that are all the artist’s own, but are also offered as visual devices for the viewer to ponder on too.

In his series of smaller paintings he shifts his gaze from the moments onto the feelings stirred by certain situations (the heat of a blazing fire, the openness of the sky, the gentleness and wildness of the fields) and the feelings stirred during an ongoing process or journey (the promising vibrance or bleakness of a path, the empty threats of towers and tyrannical structures, peaceful meditations from the silent swaying of trees, and so on).

Just like tourists, we pass these views, then experience and relive them again through memory. 

Just like tourists, people come and go for a certain time.

Just like tourists, feelings come and go too.

Like a mantra, these thoughts were playing on repeat as the artist’s works took shape.

When things around us change at confusing, breakneck speeds, it helps to assume the mindset of a tourist. Know when to pack light or gear up. Be grateful for the privilege of being let in and through new spaces. Go forth boldly but with utmost respect for the locale and all that came before you. Soak in as much of the magic as the place and irreplicable moment will allow.

And as it happens, the same feeling of curiosity, excitement, etc., returns to us. 

Nikki Ignacio