Mark Flores
The Subterranean
Oil and Acrylic on canvas, lights. 2024



Mark Flores’ painting The Subterranean consists of a set of four unstretched canvases arranged on top of one another in ascending scale and hanging freely on the wall. The arrangement recalls ancient architectural motifs as well as layered blocks of information common in digital interfaces. The intersection of these ordered systems engages the various hierarchies and histories at play in the making of the work. This articulation is highlighted by two freestanding LED light stands that illuminate the painting and function as an extension of the framing operation within the larger work. The process recognizes the overlap of instinctive ritual and contemporary art making practices with respect to the physical properties of the material: gravity, viscosity, chroma, and gesture. The central figure is a point of recognition. A pre-Columbian head ornament known as a hacha, the image depicts what would be an adornment or field marker in the Mesoamerican bloodsport Ulama—a game that is still played to this day in a modernized form.



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