McKenzie Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by David Mann, his fifth solo show with the gallery. Mann’s new paintings continue and extend his explorations of light, space and movement, and the processes of creation and dissolution. Creating imagery born of inventive painterly processes, Mann’s work references microbiological and astronomical imagery in an abstract context. Between glowing orbs, some exploding, some imploding, some emerging and some disappearing, vast networks organize the space within the paintings while hinting at natural human social constructs such as families, friendships, and communities. Linear connections between the forms are both luminous and tenuous, and evoke visual comparisons to stem cells, synapses, molecular structures and tissues, as well as less organic associations such as schema and diagrams. The work maintains its abstract and self-reflexive nature but is informed and guided by clear connections to observable, albeit sometimes hidden, realms.

Mann utilizes a range of scientific references as a central source in his work to investigate our philosophical and emotional relationship to the sciences. He explores domains accessible through technological means, which extend and broaden our vision of the world. The beauty, mystery and authority of these sources inform the work in conjunction with inventive processes of making: multiple transparent layering disrupted with dispersions and elliptical forms articulate the space and suggest a rich and dense activity below the surface.

The creation of cluster formations in Mann’s paintings can be seen as a visual parallel to the activity of genesis and dissipation in cellular and microscopic bodies which are in turn analogous to cosmic formations. The development of the linear structural forms arose from a desire to engage the painting in a systematic, all-over fashion, to activate and energize the entire space. The implication is that the viewer is witness to a fragment of a much larger, continuous event. Similarly, Mann creates a pervasive inner light in his paintings, glowing orbs that telegraph and project light and energy to each other and to the viewer in a way that is sometimes explosive, at other times subtle and quiet.