Head into the Arts & Communications Building at the University of La Verne and it might be hard to miss the latest installment of art at the Tall Wall Space.
That’s because in “Divinity Degenerate,” artist Mark Dean Veca has stretched his work, which blends drawings of Pegasus-shaped silhouettes and a tangerine sky over 400-by-554 inches. That’s roughly 33-by-46 feet.
Through the use of a repeating pattern of the creature from Greek mythology – which also happens to be the Exxon Mobil logo – the larger-than-life piece seems to stretch peripheral perception through a massive fiery red-and-golden sunset.
The piece mixes mythology and pop iconography, revealing the layers of meaning Veca works with. According to a release, the massive piece of artwork is a drawing that layers various shades of yellow and orange, mimicking a sunset with the images aligned with diagonal orientation. Black calligraphic brushstrokes accent and define the contours of the silhouettes as lines spread and twist, emphasizing the tension between “the flatness of the blank white wall and the glowing expanse seen through the logo-shaped apertures.”
“Divinity Degenerate” was literally the university’s biggest undertaking, said Dion Johnson, Art Galleries director.
“The piece Veca did at La Verne is the largest piece of art we have ever had at La Verne,” said Johnson. “Mark has really made the entire wall his canvas. Instead of making a piece on the wall, he has transformed the wall.”
Veca works within various mediums, including detailed ink-on-paper works and immersive large-scale museum installations. As his biography reveals, “a common thread unifying his work is an idiosyncratic draftsmanship that can reconfigure and redefine any cultural icon or pop image to have distinctively new presence and meaning.”
The artist has had his work in exhibits throughout North America, Europe and Japan at institutions such as PS1/ MOMA, The Drawing Center, The Brooklyn Museum, Bloomberg Space and the Orange County Museum of Art.
Originally from Shreveport, La., Veca has been recognized globally, including reviews of his work in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Artforum.
The exhibit will run through May.
Tall Wall Space Gallery in the Arts & Communications Building is at 1950 Third St., La Verne. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Thursday, or by appointment.
For more information, call Johnson at 909-593-3511, ext. 4383.
