MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD

My work concerns itself with the complexities of the African American experience in contemporary society. The work often involves my interpretation of the process by which images are formed in the subconscious. It is my contention that we borrow from this subliminal well on the conscious level and alternately navigate through various layers of consciousness to reach the source of our spiritual selves. My initial exploration of this theoretical phenomenon was realized in work, which dealt with the psychological effect associated with African American stereotypes as characterized by blackface minstrelsy and black cartoon characters from the 1930’s and 40’s. My scope has broadened to include explorations of dualities in contemporary society with references to African spiritual practices of the Eguns and tropes that make use of both positive and negative energies. The process is dependent on a methodology akin to “automatic writing” where line becomes positive energy in an interplay with negative space  to create a neutral field. The work  has evolved into abstraction relying on the spontaneous manifestation of ideas and the tactile manipulation of medium in a form of mental mapping.