WINDOW EXHIBIT :
MARCUS ENCEL
Exhibition dates. 20 April - 1 May, 2022
Opening Reception : Thur 21 April 2022, 6:00 - 8.30pm.
Marcus Encel is a Melbourne based artist working out of Blender studios and his Collingwood Dojo.
Coming from a background of Jewellery, sculpture and martial arts Marcus is known locally mostly for his Performance and Martial arts. Recently He has been getting noticed for his graffiti, mixed media Stencil and freehand painting. Utilising more sculptural forms Encel Builds texture and tone by multiple layering of each stencil on an acrylic freehand background.
Often using surreal execution with Japanese folk lore and ukiyoe and tattoo influences Encel likes to use abstracted source images and further interpret them through freehand layering.
The Artist
Interview with artist : Marcus Encel
1 . Has your training in jewellery making, sculpture and martial arts in any way influenced your painting style and techniquqe ?
Definitely. I guess my interest in heroic and mythic themes and my original drive to excel in the martial arts stem from a common origin. Thats balanced with an interest in philosophy and the existential crisis of humanity.
My jewelry and sculpture teacher Matchem Skipper and my experiences at Montsalvat influence me in many ways. It certainly gave me an appreciation and a level of skill in Renaissance techniques of sculpture and jewelry making but also an appreciation for the materiality of objects and art. While I have always drawn since my earliest childhood It was always primarily black-and-white and tonal in nature. I do enjoy both the freehand elements and the routine freehand cutting elements of stencil making or at least the way I do it and following it up and preceding it with the various types of drawing technique. So I just kind of try to melt all the boundaries of art and express myself freely. It is sculptural in nature both visual and in fact and the outcomes are visually linked to sculpture and other 3-D practices.
2. What is your creative process when translating traditional and folk imagery into a contemporary medium? Are there any challenges?
For me there are no challenges translating images
I have chosen other than the general challenges one might experience making any artwork. If i work from an existing image or reference it is inevitably something I have a deep connection to already.
Traditional imagery is easy work with if you have been bought up in the culture. If not I guess it will have more of a historical reference.
I never have any issue in the translation of it and I generally have a clear idea what I want to do even if it changes during the process.
In this case the creative process actually started with the canvas that was made with Belgian linen and rabbit skin glue, a Renaissance technique by a fellow artist in my studio. I never use this type of canvas and it inspired me to work. In this case it was almost square so I felt compositionally it had to be a portrait.
It started off as more of a technical experiment when I got it in my head that I would start to do stencils with no lines so it was all tonal and work from there. I wanted an image I knew well and as I have no real skill in painting I wanted it to be monochrome which I always excelled in but I decided to use A minute amount of colour to suggest colour rather than showing explicitly to give you a sense of the unseen. The image that I use is one from the Aiki Jinja or shrine of Aikido where I lived frequently over the decades the longest time being a year. I was an Uchi Deshi or servant of the shrine and my Sensei Morihiro Saito Sensei. I started Aikido because my parents knew O’Sensei the founder of Aikido (the man in my image). The painting references an amazing photo if him at the Iwama Aiki Jinja (shrine).
Just Post Covid and after several injuries and comebacks I felt myself slipping from World class as an athlete and was compelled to express something about my martial arts journey. Plus the illness of my father made me reflect on my life and my current lack of things tying me to in my youth other than my practice of martial arts and Aikido and in a crazy world where everything was upside down I just wanted to express something they had kept me level my whole life and turned me around in hard times. As my father slips away I guess im reaching for the father that really nurtured me through my hardest times and my greatest achievements… O’Sensei
So in all the piece was a mixture of responding to my materials and my current headspace although as you can tell its quite convoluted.
While In the last decade or so I’ve worked almost purely in experimental art I just felt it was time to bring all my skills together into one spot and not be held back by genres or other people’s ideas of what’s appropriate and just make art and resolve it rather than only leaving a question. Even if the resolution is a question.
Q & Photography : BLACKCAT GALLERY & Isabella Imperatore