Mark Joshua Epstein
The Morning After the Night Before, 2026
Acrylic on watercolor paper
33 × 25.4 cm
signed and dated 2026 verso
While these visual elements draw directly on my relationship to biological family and cultural tradition, the visualization of queerness in my work purposely eschews a straightforward correspondence to definitive forms....
While these visual elements draw directly on my relationship to biological family and cultural tradition, the visualization of queerness in my work purposely eschews a straightforward correspondence to definitive forms. This stance reflects my commitment to exploring the inherent complexity of visibility politics through abstraction. The histories of queer and Jewish people alike are shaped by an awareness that obscuring markers of identity in certain situations is essential for survival. Strategic adaptation was, and remains, a vital strategy, and so the colored shapes that cloak these reliefs function in some way as camouflage that conceals their formal and conceptual armatures. Yet at the same time, these very systems of dissemblance can also serve as beacons, as invitations to new places of refuge and possibility.
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