Mark Joshua Epstein

Mark Joshua Epstein’s shaped paintings are made with fiberglass and resin, cut and sanded into streamlined shapes resembling Art Deco Miami, or bodily curves and indentations. Dimensional and dynamic forms have bold colors framed with gossamer borders, introducing substantive ideas found within surface and edge, and grand gestures glossed with dainty detail. The work has autobiographical themes in thoughtful conversation with histories of design, furniture, architecture, and painting. The artist is inspired by the covers of Nest, a New York based interior design magazine (1997-2004), highlighting non-traditional eccentric interiors and intricate graphic design layouts, which Epstein often used as a portal to another world while growing up in the suburbs. He incorporates graphic geometric patterns that reference motifs and ornaments found in Eastern European Jewish paper cutting, and abstract curvilinear designs decorating the borders of Medieval manuscript pages. Tiny brushstrokes deliver an electric charge of patience and toil. The paintings’ borders, configured with diamonds, swirls, triangles, and arches, elevate what is on the fringe, as Epstein’s interests in Pattern and Decoration, textiles, and décor similarly elevate the “secondary” to the “primary”.

Epstein received his MFA from the Slade School of Fine Arts, University College London, UK, and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University, Boston, MA. Solo and two-person shows include Ortega y Gasset Projects’ Skirt Space, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College, NARS Foundation Project Space, Caustic Coastal, Vane Gallery, among others. Select group shows include the Nerman Museum,  Arlington Arts Center, Marquee Projects, TSA New York, Collar Works, Good Children Gallery, Monaco, Beverly’s, and Des Moines Art Center. Residencies include Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony, Jentel Foundation, Macdowell Colony, Saltonstall Foundation, I-Park and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, among others. His work has appeared in publications such as New American Paintings, Art Maze Magazine, Dovetail and Two Coats of Paint. He is a 2023 Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, in Provincetown, MA, and is currently in the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program.