In February 2021 at PontArte in Maastricht, the new series of Absis from Marc Prat will be presented. The works on canvas and panel were made during the pandemic in 2020 and some were exhibited already at Rubrecht Contemporary, Wiesbaden in November 2020. Due to all measurements around Covid 19, the exhibition can’t be visited in person till at least the 9th of February. After that, we hope to be able to start receiving visitors again at the gallery.
In these times of worldwide lockdowns we see a search for meaning. Beyond our consumer society and hunger for instant satisfaction, a need arises for giving meaning to life and the things we do. Shouldn’t there be more to life than buying cheap fashionable decoration, going on city trips and being busy all the time? Many are investigating what is really important to us. Is it this cheaply produced sweater reflecting yet another new fashion trend? Or could it be something that remains important for a longer time, something that stays and brings joy time and again, whenever we see it?
For Marc Prat, this search for an inner soul is visible in all of his work. Since he started as a professional visual artist in the 1990’s, his work consists of series that relate to a search for our feelings and emotions. We have seen studies of the body, cloisters, masks and animals and since 2013 a series of works around the Absis, the part of a temple or church where the altar is located.
In Marc Prat’s interpretations, the Absis as such is depicted without the distraction of any religious elements, thus emphasizing the raw structure and its impression of space and giving room to our own thoughts.
The way he works with light and dark, the dripping paint and charcoal create a work in which you can almost literally disappear. Each of the works is different, the emotion they provoke is what’s binding them together as a series.
As the well-known Spanish art critic Pere Pasqual said it in his blog in December 2020:
“MARC PRAT has reached a new peak in his artistic career. His work consists of absolutely humanistic images, because in each of his works, regardless of the subject, he confronts us with man and his inner questions.”
5 new large works will be presented, together with a series of screen-prints made in 2019 and the etching of the Absis made in 2015.
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