The Bay
McAtamney Gallery, Geraldine
March 2025
Acrylic on canvas, 915 x 1525 x 40
Acrylic on canvas, 800 x 1030 x 35
Acrylic on canvas, 800 x 1200 x 40
Acrylic on canvas, 800 x 1030 x 40
Acrylic on panel, framed, 455 x 330 x 70, Private Collection
Acrylic on panel, framed, 455 x 330 x 70
In these works, where text takes the position of the subject, Mark uses layers of camouflage in metallic colours to reflect watery forms that are overlayed with typographic silhouettes, echoing the names of neighbourhood streets from San Francisco.
Signed limited edition prints have also been produced as part of this exhibition; All-Pigment UltraChrome XD ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Pearl, 320 gsm, 100% cotton natural white, acid and lignin-free, 420 x 594 mm, maximum edition of 5
Some Positions in Space & Time
Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch
June/July 2024
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano, mounted on panel, Framed, 715 x 905 x 70mm
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano, mounted on panel, Framed, 500 x 410 x 70mm, private collection
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano, mounted on panel, Framed, 500 x 410 x 70mm
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano, mounted on panel, Framed, 500 x 410 x 70mm
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano, mounted on panel, Framed, 500 x 410 x 70mm
experience with typographic forms aligned with specific locations; street
names and neighbourhoods. I pull analogue and digital source images apart and segment them into light and dark.
Drawn with a knife, hand-cut stencils made from meticulous tracings of these forms come together in layers, communicating a place name lost in time. Applied with a squeegee, semi-transparent films of metallic colours complicate the figure ground relationships.
Man-made forms assert themselves over the pictorial space just as a street cuts a concrete path through what was once a sand dune. The toponymy applied to an area, its place name, becomes synonymous with that area. The trace of histories associated with it recede into invisibility.
Figure & Ground
McAtamney Gallery, Geraldine
March, 2024
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano mounted on panel, Framed, 640 x 540 x 70mm
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano mounted on panel, Framed, 465 x 350 x 70 mm, private collection
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano mounted on panel, Framed, 640 x 540 x 70 mm
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano mounted on panel, Framed, 465 × 350 x 70 mm, private collection
Hand-cut stencils from letterforms create crisp edges corralling the dynamic energy of gestural mark-making. Metallic surfaces reflect and distort, mirroring the push-pull between figure and ground. Words, cropped and fragmented, whisper of specific locales—swaths of sand cradling delicate flora and fauna. References to the artist’s past and the colonial overtones that shaped geographical landmarks where he grew up infuse the textual fragments with a subtle tension.
Soltero’s meticulous process— thin, semi-transparent layers of paint applied with squeegees—create infinite layers of space. The crisp, opaque fragments standing in stark contrast to the sense of infinite depth created by translucencies, are both grounding and isolating. This interplay extends beyond the canvas, drawing the viewer’s gaze into the negative space surrounding the text. Are the letters emerging from the void, or voids carved into a vibrant ground? Soltero masterfully blurs the line, inviting viewers to actively participate in constructing meaning.
The fragmented texts themselves hint at hidden narratives. Place names—from the artist’s personal history—emerge like whispers from the painted surface. Yet, they remain incomplete, their full stories obscured. Audiences are able to draw upon their own experiences and memories, creating their own interpretations. The artwork becomes a catalyst for personal reflection, prompting viewers to confront the complex relationship between individual histories and broader collective narratives.
Cinematic Ontologies
Chambers Gallery, Christchurch
March, 2023
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano mounted on panel, Framed-unglazed, 855 x 1142 x 70mm
R: Drawing Strategies 4, 2022, Acrylic on panel, Framed-unglazed, 380 x 485 x 70mm
Acrylic on 640gsm Fabriano mounted on panel, Framed-unglazed, 455 x 330 x 70mm, each
Acrylic on panel, Framed-unglazed, 635 x 765 x 70mm, private collection
Acrylic on panel, Framed-unglazed, 355 x 280 x 70mm, each
Mark presents the opportunity for the viewer’s past to reflect within the positive and negative space of his paintings, forming a subconscious link between the painting and their memories, allowing past and present to collide in the current moment. The paintings themselves materialise moments of metaphysical impact, which can change constantly depending on the experiences that one has had.
The immaterial concept of time has therefore become material itself. Mark’s methods embrace an image referencing the past, a cinematic space which no longer physically exists, and conjoins this with the present, his contemporary interpretations. The Irving was an old-style theatre, we would now consider ‘boutique’. Through his work, Mark has released it from being condemned to history, a memory and photograph, and has given it new meaning in contemporary spaces. During his process, Mark pulls the image apart, dissolving the originally analogue medium into digital images which are segmented into layers of light and dark. This use of media, both analogue and digital, embrace and connect the old and new; past and present.
Cinematic Forms of Light & Shadow
Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch
March, 2022
Recently I’ve been using a combination of reflective metallic paints and dense light-absorbing black. The shapes are the result of mining the interiors of particular cinema spaces, slicing through the layers of the light and shadow in the image like an onion, revealing fragmentary patterns. The patterns are abstract but they were absolutely real at a particular point in time. I’m researching ideas related to mirrors – the refraction of light firstly in the photograph, then echoed through its projection over the internet and again when processed in a computer, the reflective paint, the doubling of the image to create the Rorschach effect and finally the fact that when we view abstract images we project our own thoughts onto them, and interpret what we’re seeing.
Jacques Derrida’s concept of différance, where meaning is differed/deferred, can be considered in terms of the act of thinking which necessarily involves association, memory, prediction, assumption, anticipation…we literally move between associations. It’s that space of our interior world I’m exploring.
The Projection Room
Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch
July, 2019
The Projection Room.
Works in this exhibition are the result of an extreme drawing process in which Soltero begins by deconstructing and mining images to see what they contain. The extracted layers are scaled for rendering. Some image layers, such as the ones resulting in the large paintings on wool, become hand-cut stencils to be painted through. Image layers for the works on paper are graphite-transferred onto an Aplitape layer that is cut while applied directly to the painting/drawing before being painted through. All of these processes of looking through the layers, drawing the outlines and shapes over and over, is a type of physical tracing of the memories and histories.
Eclipse
Tin Palace, Lyttelton
May, 2015
Mark Soltero does a remarkable job of making us think and look more deeply at the images of political unrest and at our own easy and thoughtless consumption of images. We have become unconscious devourers of the visual. Mark gives us what we so desperately need in all aspects of our present lives - 'pause for thought'. Melissa Miles, 24 May 2015”
– Melissa Miles
Gerhard Richter’s series October 18, 1977, challenges the notion that photographs can help us understand the moments they visually re-present. Elements of these paintings defer to wider issues such as the control of potentially corrupt governments, the dangers of ideology and ultimately, the failure of individuals to challenge the state. Their pared down simplicity suggests their meaning should be easily grasped. Instead the tensions they defer to have become increasingly complex and embedded.
Soltero’s treatment of Richter’s series aims to resurrect the questions around these tensions, reversing the light and dark elements, while allowing what remains to blur further, as if time has become darker.
The materials and processes: black, white and grey printed on paper through digital and photographic means, engage with the ideas of absorbing and resisting which, are the heart of the practice of painting. Absorbing light, time, gaze, questions. Resisting an answer.
Back Catalogue in Black and White
Dunedin School of Art, Dunedin
Dec, 2014
Soltero’s practice deals with memory and history, with time, space and information. A study of specific works by particular artists is included within this scope. Therefore the content of Soltero’s work, which is underpinned by formative moments in his life, includes formative moments in the history of Modernist Painting while addressing particular contemporary contexts. The work is deliberately produced in a limited palette of black, white and grey, functioning as a discipline in the process of decision making and as a reference to light and space, presence and absence, time and information. Soltero’s work engages viewers in a temporal experience that may also refer to other events, to other spaces both real and conceptual.