Following a prolonged tenure at the Prisma residency program, artist and illustrator Jonathan Markish tackled the conflation of safety, intimacy, and cleanliness in an exhibition curated in the shadow of the novel coronavirus.
Wash your hands, don’t touch your eyes, protect yourself, keep it clean, stay away from sight. There is security in loneliness, away from the germs, the sin, the judgement. In the water closet there is no crowd, we take off our masks, our nudity is not merely physical, but psychological and spiritual as well. A shroud of mist, an intoxicating plume, piercing through hydrated skin the energy of water plays with light and transports our consciousness into an ethereal dimension. By melding figurative imagery with quasi-abstract patterns and seamlessly traveling between perspectives and nuances, Water Closet captures an unfettered solitary state, universally relatable yet rarely shared. It will take us on a journey into the inner sanctum of the human psyche, where we stand bare to ponder our very core of existence.
Jonathan (b.84), a veteran of visual storytelling and a representational painter explores the boundaries of human cognition with works shown in three continents. Water Closet showcases figurative paintings in various formats that pry open a glimpse into the wettest of daily moments, challenging viewers to take a straightforward look at our current obsession with sanitation and hygiene in a forlorn world without human touch.
