VIDEO: Mark Khaisman at Pentimenti Gallery | VoltaNY

Philadelphia based artist Mark Khaisman, represented at the VoltaNY show by the Pentimenti Gallery, talks about a common yet unexpected material he uses to create his multi-dimentional artwork. From the intricate recreations of the French imperial furniture to film noir stills of Hollywood stars  – Grace Kelly, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, the artist captures a unique fragment in a time long gone and allows us to contemplate it for a little while longer.

Video interview transcript:

Mark Khaisman, Louis XV chair. Packing tape on clear plexiglass. galleryIntell Volta Show

Mark Khaisman, Louis XV chair. Packing tape on clear plexiglass. Image © Mark Khaisman, courtesy Pentimenti Gallery

Mark Khaisman: ”I love this art fair and I think that this concept, this idea of a solo show is very interesting. My name is Mark Khaisman, I work with packing tape. It’s packing tape on clear plexiglass on light boxes. This work is based on the Louis VX period furniture. I think it’s kind of iconic for the medium. Basically, it’s one of the finest examples of how the material can be forced, wood can be forced to work against its nature, and in a way, I think that’s what I am doing with the tape. I’m forcing this packing tape to work as a fine art material.

I used to work in several fields and the last one was stained glass and it came out of painting with light. But I work as an architect, I work in movies, so it kind of came together. This series of work involve with film noir and its interaction with the city space. Basically, and more specifically, with windows. So all images in this show are windows. One way or another it is people looking at the windows, or we are looking at the people looking at the windows, or there are just windows itself. This is an image from The Rear Window: James Stewart and the window he is looking at.

Interview © galleryIntell. Images courtesy of Pentimenti Gallery. Artwork © Mark Khaisman