JUXTAPOZ – RAHN Marion “Where you meet Spirit Bone” @ Monya Rowe Gallery, NYC
Monia Row Gallery I am pleased to announce the individual exhibition in New York II of a Memphis -based artist Ran Marion Entitled Where the soul meets the bones. The title of the exhibition is borrowed, where Spirit Bone, from a song for the southern singer Lucinda Williams (1953). This phrase is a metaphor for the intersection as it connects the physical and spiritual body, in its essence, the true self.
Marion grew up in the state of Mississippi and Tennessee, and still lives in the southern American. His paintings instill his live experiences with inspiration from rich textiles of southern popular episodes, theological novels and vibrant energy in the Renaissance Harlem to form a unique contemporary dialogue. The images in the exhibition range from Jesters, MEMENTO MORI and the skeletons of dance for men with butterfly wings and strikes. Marion sarcastic options, partially affected by the medieval period, adopt the identity of the stranger and look at how to contribute to clothes, or “fashion”, in daily performance. Rupaul quotes: “We were all born naked, and the rest is clouds.”
Sugar in JEST (2025), a man lying in a skirt echoing EGON Schlele’s (1890-1918) repeats a well-known painting from 1911. Here, an American-African American man with a fading in the 1990s, which also symbolizes an Egyptian head cover, proudly shows his body toning and a group of colored pastel fish through a successful hunting trip. A nearby bird symbolizes the spirit, renewal and new opportunities. Through the perspective of South Gharib, the effects of the many medieval artists to William Blake (1757-1827) ranges to contemporary culture. Marion’s paintings swing between pure and fun, romantic and another with the use of a different set of icons to explore identity, spirituality and existence.
