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In his meticulously rendered small paintings and large-scale drawings, artist Mark Stockton explores the cinematic moments when identity is transformed into celebrity. Focusing on the three year period leading up to 1984, when Tom Cruise had substantive parts in five films, Stockton examines the formation of a contemporary icon. In his search for traces of humanity in these images, Stockton unearths the man before he became an icon - before his image devoured his identity.
Stockton’s time-intensive paintings, as small as 2x3 inches, and highly detailed drawings, as large as 100x75 inches, all depict Cruise in states of contemplation, subtly reminding the viewer of his or her own complicity in the creation of celebrity, and the discomfort that follows when that image is fractured.
The title of the show is, of course, a reference to George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984, in which he envisioned a dystopian future where the individual meets a similar fate; when the collective memory is controlled by the images which are –and are not- allowed to be viewed, when humanity is lost as the individual becomes a soulless automaton.
Stockton is a full time faculty member at Mercer College in Trenton, New Jersey. His drawings and paintings have recently been shown in Los Angeles and New York, including the “Samurai” project, a photographic collaboration with Edgar Endress shown at the UCR/California Museum of Photography in Riverside, CA.
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