PRESS RELEASE

MARQUEE PROJECTS

Rememnant

Nunzio De Martino

Erik Sommer

Jane South

Opening Reception:
Saturday, March 6, 3pm - 6pm

Exhibition:
March 6 - April 11, 2021

As MARQUEE PROJECTS enters its fifth season, we are thrilled to present REMEMNANT, a group exhibition, featuring the work of Nunzio De Martino, Erik Sommer, and Jane South.

A reception for the artists will be held on Saturday, March 6 from 3 pm to 6 pm.

These artists speak profoundly to us through meditations on the passage of time and considerations of the forgotten or discarded. In our current environment, many people are concerned with having either too much surplus time or not enough available time; while others reminisce about less-complicated times past or long for a future that returns to normalcy.

And, in a period of great loss and financial hardship for many, there is an ambient sense of frugality and conservation. Our three artists create by making do with what is on hand – a kind of foraging aspect – using remnant materials that are pre-used, left behind or pummeled by the passage of time.  But there is no question that this is inspiringly hopeful art. There is a transformative and transcendent quality to both the process and the product, and these artists perform the alchemical act of transmuting dross into gold. They have the power to bring creation out of destruction and promise a beautiful, lyrical future out of an unrecognizable present.

Nunzio De Martino is based in Naples, Italy, but worked for many years in Milan as assistant to the world’s leading fashion photographers, as well as collaborating with designers including Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna, and publications such as Mondo Uomo, and Superbe. As a fine artist, he draws upon that couture-influenced background as well as childhood memories by stitching ethereal, contemplative pieces onto canvas using his only personal tool of expression: “a 1949 sewing machine that belonged to my mother.”

Erik Sommer is an American artist living and working in New York City. His weathered paintings, decomposed sculptures, and cement installations suggest abandonment, erosion and the effects of time. Combining house paint, spray paint, leftover bits of drywall, joint compound, and aged street posters, he hurriedly applies paint in an accidental and non-painterly approach, then scrapes and removes layers of the surface to imply further age and use. “I do not want my hand to be noticed in the work.”

Jane South, originally from Manchester, UK, is now based in Brooklyn, NY.  Like Mr. De Martino, she turns her sewing machine into a tool for drawing, but stitches onto soft 3-dimensional assemblages made from abandoned curtains, packing foam, batting, tarp, her own recycled artwork, and various leftover materials from past tenants and roommates. She also builds intricate sculptures out of harder materials and cut, folded, and painted paper, evoking deconstructed parts of antique machinery.

For further information, please contact Mark Van Wagner at mark@marqueeprojects.org or call (303) 875-6879.