Dormancy Quota Exceeded:

Plank-Lever Series

Paintings by Mark Roth

October 12 – Dec.3

Opening reception October 21, Friday 6-8pm

“When your back’s up against the wall, it means everything’s in front of you.”

Roth borrows a line from his performance days to aptly describe the contemplative underpinnings of the Plank-Lever Series. With the planet’s imperiled viability in frightening focus, it can feel we are collectively walking the plank to a futureless doom. Still, it is also true that the sun has not yet hit peak light and the heart is a resilient organ. With a shift in application, the extreme place at which we find ourselves – the end of the plank- becomes a lever, the privileged position offering maximum leverage to effect change. It’s simple physics, a kind of opportunity by default.

Mark Roth is an East Village-based painter devoted to process and the rigors of oil. He is the creator of TINSQUO.com and, in an earlier incarnation, a central figure in Chicago’s performance art renaissance of the 1980s and 90s. Roth received a BFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.