FACELESS PAINTINGS
2011 - 2025
2011 - 2025
CHOAS MAGAZINE by Lauren Hostetter "Underneath a swelling torrent of social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, it would seem that we’ve forgotten the value of anonymity. In an attempt to fill our 500+ acquaintances in on the gritty and incredibly interesting details of our daily lives, we willingly provide our precise geographic coordinates when trying out a new restaurant and share faux-polaroid glamour shots of questionable artistic merit. We’ve convinced ourselves that power lies in celebrity, when in fact it lies with a total lack thereof. The anonymous figure gets to say and do just as he pleases and, so long as he has no name and no distinctive characteristics, avoids any potential backlash with ease. Anonymity and its consequences, both good and bad, are at the forefront of Anonymous, an exhibit that opened up just last Friday at the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (PERMM) in Perm, Russia. Florida artist Marcus Jansen, who is considered by many to be the 21st century’s response to artists like Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg, will be representing the United States with a series of paintings called “Faceless.” Their power lies partially in their dress, but also in their lack of discernible identity. Like the British Bankers’ Association and its anonymous committee members, who make major decisions regarding the global economy, their benevolence is much appreciated while it lasts. But once the proverbial shit hits the fan, they can flee unscathed and unnamed while we stand by pointing fingers in the general direction of the scandal." |
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2011 - 2012
Ratrace, 30x40" oil on canvas, 2000 - The first face distorted work
Published in the book, Marcus Antonius Jansen, Modern - Urban Expressionism published in 2006
Published in the book, Marcus Antonius Jansen, Modern - Urban Expressionism published in 2006
“In many museums you can walk through and see Colonialists depicted on a pedestal in high regard. Next to them are usually classical landscape paintings that have historically been used to project power. In my paintings,
these portraits are usually unveiled and stripped of power and the landscapes are often areas of mystery, questions and conflict.”
- Marcus Jansen, 2022