The show, revealing presence(s), by Mark Dilks with collaborator, Jessi Ray Koch, at Practice Gallery, makes visible internal navigations and sensations of external realities. We attempt to open up and welcome in.
This show consists of a few parts.
The entrance is Plans. Plans consist of mostly every one of my, Mark’s, scheduled and anticipated happenings for the year 2022, written down, mapped out, kept on my person, updated and put aside as time goes by. As certain thoughts and events come (are planned for) and go (either achieved or not) they are added to and crossed off of the paper. The accumulated notations show goals, activities, thoughts, concerns and failures for the year 2022. These sheets are dated as a means of documenting and time stamping life and work, accomplishments and misses. The sheets represent thoughts on an hourly work wage, labor, love and art. They are evidence of an existence and an inventory of activity. Presented like laundry on the floor, these efforts are open to others actions reforming my past intentions.
The partition framework is Mine, Mind Internal, Thoughts. The twelve attached paintings, each conceived as an individual artwork, (and for purchase, price on request, wink wink), signify elements of my imagination and scenes floating through my head space. The imagery captures and questions virtual space, 3-D animation, copies, flattened volumes, children’s art, lesson plans, tangram puzzles, pattern, “high and low aesthetics”, relationships, geometry, opposites, space and time, reversals, sterility, physical touch, blurred edges, and puddles. I think of the viewer hovering like a humming bird flitting around among screens and blobs.
The portrait, of Jessi, is external vision in lived time and place. The painting shows a subjective point of view of a shared-in real time and space. The work began as an extension of a series of Covid Portrait Paintings I made of friends outside during the summer of 2020. This portrait was worked on from Fall 2020 through September 2023. Every paint application was made outside on location as the sun and moon cycle. I cannot imagine or know all of what and who(m) I am observing. I especially do not know the thoughts, feelings, and perspective of Jessi, a friend of over twenty years.
Painting Jessi sparked further conversation about how our insides communicate in different ways and we work to process information all the time. Jessi is a passionate community organizer and social justice advocate, who recently was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, an often unseen physical disorder. Jessi is invited to show and explain Jessi’s thoughts and sensations.
When Mark first invited me to contribute to this show, my immediate reaction was excitement at the opportunity to engage with an old friend in a new way, and feeling honored that he would consider me as a creative collaborator. And then, as it’s been for the past 7 years, the excitement was quieted by the ever present anxiety of how my body might interfere with my desire to participate and connect. Living with chronic illness and pain means that my physical and mental health are always front of mind. So I decided to use this invitation from Mark to engage in comfortable vulnerability, as a therapeutic process of reframing my view of myself by sharing my insides with the outside world.
My offerings are a place to rest - a box covered in colorful imagery based on my medical scans; a bit of my inner monologue as voice memos to be sampled in musical events and reused; and welcoming community organizations into the gallery space, who are building solutions for many of the social challenges that hold a permanent space in my mind.
BIO:
Mark Dilks is a multidisciplinary creator and collaborator. As a trained painter with a background in collage, physical touch, materiality, and accumulated sampling play strongly in Mark’s life and work. Sound and Installation mixes frequently occur with other coconspirators. They have organized happenings, hosted group shows, and created environmental experiences. Ventures in sounds include analog collages, abstract songs and modular synthesizer patches. In May 2023, The Pottery Gym, in Philadelphia, hosted Mark’s first solo painting show, May For by Fours Witness Cherry’s Blossoms Ring. The work is a result of a passionate concern for tactility and reverberation within the everyday. Mark is an alum of the University of Pennsylvania (MFA2013) and of Hampshire College (F00).
Jessi Ray Koch has a personal and professional dedication to building a more equitable and beautiful world through innovative community planning, policy and engagement. She loves serving her hometown of Philadelphia where she has contributed to an array of community-driven projects and organizations. Jessi currently works with the East Parkside neighborhood of West Philly as the Director of Equitable Development for Centennial Parkside CDC. She engages a trauma-informed and healing centered approach to her life and work. Jessi attended the University of Texas in Austin where she received her dual MS in Community and Regional Planning and Urban Design. Jessi loves to volunteer in her community and champion organizations such as The West Philly Bunny Hop, Pathways to Housing PA, and HIAS PA. She also enjoys exploring her artistic nature and the endless possibility of worlds, futures, and realities.
An elevator to the gallery is located in the vestibule. Please note to get to the elevator from the 11th street entrance there are a few steps to navigate. The second floor of the building has accessible restrooms. The gallery itself will be ADA compliant and have two seating options.
Open gallery hours are every Saturday and Sunday from 2:00PM - 6:00PM
