Mark Joshua Epstein

Epstein’s work asks questions about the visual culture associated with gayness. Discordant combinations of hues, marks, and patterns are layered, interrupted, and obfuscated until finally forced into crooked and irregular polygonal frames. Works on paper establish and then seem to drift from or defy their own microcosmic systems of logic. Exploring the overlapping politics of taste, pleasure, aesthetics, and symbolism, the works eschew expectations of their tradition, their painted surfaces slipping out of any legible lexicon.

Epstein’s works refuse to operate within contemporary expectations of LGBTQ visual culture makers. His objects are unsolvable puzzles—they avoid easily explaining themselves to a heteronormative audience. Epstein asks for a slower and deeper read than is afforded to much gay visual culture today. By drawing out the viewer’s engagement, Epstein’s work opens up new ways of thinking about how a gay experience might manifest in the visual. Hung on the wall, objects transform into intimate places to which we are invited, but not expressly pampered. Installed in the transformed color-blocked gallery, these works cannot be leveled, requiring the head-tilted viewer to adjust their perspective, expectations, and approach.