Franklin Parrasch Gallery is pleased to present a selection of untitled paintings and poems by Mark Gonzales. Made in both New York and Paris over the course of the past year, the works on view mark a synthesis between Gonzales’ trademark linguistic and image-based modes of expression.

Gonzales’ poetry, simultaneously impulsive and profound, is energetically rendered in spray paint on the slick surfaces of colored and mirrored acrylic. The episodic exploration of various themes using “automatic spelling” and oft-invented syntax as seen in Gonzales’ countless self-published zines is revisited in these works. In a colloquial nod to “skate culture”, Gonzales’ use of spray paint suggests reclamation of the raw graffiti-style text that is so often associated with skating. Though it is Gonzales’ dynamically-executed verse that elicits pause and demands closer study, the corporeal qualities of the poem works quickly seduce.

The small-scale acrylic on linen paintings offer the viewer an alternate perspective. Presented on an intimate scale in the artist’s trademark style are explorations of themes related to love, death, and the spiritual. While the ten paintings in this exhibition range from sensitive to fierce, the imagery is a nod to the more intimate work found in his zines, where text and image associate freely.