Marcus Oakley: This & That
Analogue Books
Edinburgh, UK
9 February - 10 March 2007

Review by Rea Cris

If you are a cynic or pessimist, please leave those traits at home in a cupboard. Marcus Oakley’s exhibit at Analogue is gorgeous and glorious. Describing the exhibit as colourful and child-like would be belittling and insulting because it is so much more beyond that.

This show is a return to childhood, but one that retains the experience and knowledge of adulthood. It’s an understood return to childhood. The exhibition is a return to the hopes and beliefs we held as children and lost as adults: the hopes and beliefs that everything is good and kind in the world. The exhibition has an American feel to it from the rural houses to his numerous musical favourites, namely the Beach Boys and their good vibrations. Oakley brings back the original goodness and belief in the ‘American dream’ before it all went bad and corrupt. His painting of the gallery walls allows you to become totally immersed in the art, like as if entering a giant pub tent.

Oakley’s drawing style is a mixture of ideas. There is an important seriousness and urgency that gives the feeling that he has to draw this and record it otherwise it would be lost forever. It is reminiscent of Egyptian drawings, an obvious example being Oakley’s “snack time squirrel” with his posed hands and feet and eyes on either side of his head. The Egyptians drew what they knew and recorded their way of life and Oakley records those little things in life that we would let us pass by. At the same time, Oakley’s drawings remind me of being jealous of that kid in art class that the teacher loved and praised. You hated him because he was so good and in reality you wished it were you.

I think the aspect of the exhibition I like the best is that Oakley demonstrates that artists do not have to be tortured, disturbed, serious, thoughtful survivors to make great art. Speaking with the artist himself, he talks of drawing only to satisfy himself. Oakley shows us that its ok to be happy and an artist as well and shows us what we have been missing out on in our serious mature lives.

http://www.analoguebooks.co.uk/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/analoguebooks/sets (click on Marcus Oakley)
http://www.re-title.com/artists/Marcus-Oakley.asp

Tonya wrote:
It’s interesting that you say “the American dream before it all went bad.” The American dream never really existed in reality – just as a calculated form of PR – social propaganda, if you will. So that puts a nice spin on all this, since most people’s memories of childhood also tend to be over idealized illusions. Or so the stereotype goes.

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