Mark Dean Veca

New York City

For his current exhibition, Made for You and Me, Mark Dean Veca has created a new body of work around the theme of Americana. Veca who is known for creating paintings, drawings and installations of surreal cartoons, psychedelic landscapes, and pop culture iconography, now reflects the American culture in decline. The artist thematizes capitalism, nationalism, and the American spirit through paintings on canvas.

Feeling as though he was witnessing the collapse of the “American Dream,” Veca began these paintings in 2009 to address the corruption of ideals in this country. The title of the exhibition comes from Woody Guthrie’s popular folk song, This Land Is Your Land – a song originally meant to express communist sentiments that has been co-opted to represent the spirit of capitalism and growth. Veca’s latest work can be understood as a form of Sinister Pop, with images from our consumer culture — Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus, the Monopoly logo, dollar signs— twisted and transformed into dark, slightly maniacal forms. This is best exemplified by the image of Reddy Kilowatt. Once an emblem of consumption, Veca has revived this character as a symbol of our ever greater dependence on electrical power and our embrace of consumption rather than conservation.

Mark Dean Veca

Cristin Tierney

January 31 – March 9, 2013
546 West 29th Street
New York, NY 10001
USA

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