Mark Kostabi

 It is very rare for me to buy a picture. Thinking back over many years these are the ones that I have bought or Annette and I have bought together.

Chinese style landscape (now deceased), three impressionistic flower arrangements (Richard Akerman), two local park studies (Peter Boyle), a pool with overhanging trees (Mrs Ferguson) and of course lady watching TV (Lu J Son).

When we visited Tallinn in Agust I went to PoCo, their museum of contemporary art.  It was interesting and enjoyable.  There were one or two pictures by Mark Kostabi in the exhibition, which I liked and as I was leaving I saw that there was one of his prints for sale.  I was tempted to buy it but, as usual, I wasn't ready to make a quick decision.

Mark Kostabi is an American, living in Los Angeles, but his parents emigrated from Estonia so he has local connections.

 I thought more and more about the picture as we returned home and after a week or two I started looking online for prints by Kostabi that I could buy.  I am very happy with one I chose which now has pride of place in my personal gallery.

First off I like the lack of detail and smooth outlines of his characters.  Expressions, clothes, textures are not available to tell you anything about the participants.  Their posture, the positioning of limbs are the main source of clues.  For the dancers you could imagine them wearing leotards, tights, pumps and showing fixed smiles of concentration.

In my picture it is easy to see a couple who are very fond of each other, standing in an embrace and two more people in a state of abject despair.
So much is achieved by simple, gradual shading changes on their surfaces.  They could be mannikins which you can dress as you wish.

I like to think of the title as "hope and despair".

Mark Kostabi has produced many works some of which I have looked through.  Many are more complex or have more to say but I like these two.  Mark Kostabi himself faded somewhat from the art scene, some year ago because of balatant homophobic statements so I haven't looked further.