FRESH FRIDAY | MARINA FONT

Miami-based artist, Marina Font utilizes a flat medium, photography, as a base for her more complex and explosive layering with embroidery. The juxtaposition of the two is blunt and beautiful. A black and white photograph, usually nudes in a frontal stance or bust, is the foundation for this stark contrast. The bold stitch work is then done on the surface of the photograph to create geometric, delicate designs that add tangible texture. Harnessing a unique mixed media technique, Font focuses on deeper mental states as the topic of her work.

In her most recent exhibit, Mental Maps at Dina Mitrani Gallery in Miami, Font showcases her interest in gender, identity, and the unconscious. This study of the unconscious comes in both a direct and indirect form. The direct representation, the embroidery itself, and the indirect, what the embroidery represents. Personifications of the stitch work could possibly be ideas, worry, love, anger, or any of the unlimited human feelings we posses. These ornate designs merely represent the deeper forces on the banal physical structure.

Font's work resides in limbo between the physical and mental states, effortlessly switching from the surface of our bodily appearance to the complex design of our unconscious thoughts. The pieces are equal part beautiful and strange, while providing the viewer with vague personifications to make their own. Perhaps allowing us each to relate individually as humans who all experience these feelings and forces.