About
Projects
Eclipse
Tin Palace, Lyttelton
May, 2015
Youth Portrait (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 485 x 430mm
Confrontation 2 (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 470 x 430mm
Confrontation 3 (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 485 x 430mm
Cell (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 585 x 430mm
Hanged (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 585 x 430mm
Man Shot Down 1 (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 430 x 585mm
Man Shot Down 2 (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 430 x 585mm
Man Shot Down 1 (after-Gerhard Richter), 2015, permenant pigment print in matte black on 300gsm Canon rag, 430 x 640mm
“Gorgeous black and white versions of Impressionist and Pre-Raphaelite paintings or fun Rorschach ink blots revealing our inner psyche; but wait! Once you realize where these remarkable prints come from everything changes. The darkness becomes foreboding and the images uncertain and foggy, hidden as the subject of the prints were - the political vagaries surrounding the "suicides" of three political prisoners of the RAF in Germany 1977.

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.
©MMXXIVMark Soltero – Visual Artist