MARCUS LESLIE SINGLETON

(b. 1990 Seattle, WA) is a self-taught artist best known for his distinct figurative paintings that cite pointed yet subtle observations. Singleton’s practice offers implicit critiques of contemporary social and political issues while simultaneously inviting viewers to engage in a visceral discourse examining the dialogue around spirituality and social constructs. Through natural, carefree, and playful strokes, his work depicts narrative scenes highlighting the trials of reality and its nonphysical components; "I'm interested in creating new paths that aim to contextualize aesthetic beliefs and inspire people to unlearn and humanize us presently and in the future," Singleton explains. His presentation of these timelines both highlight and celebrate the multiplicity in society detailing the parallel realities of joy and hardship in a figurative language. Using spontaneity, scale, and expressive placement of color Singleton's paintings offer a jovial perspective that is both poignant and bold.

“I aim to display a language of movement and form, a testimony to the resilience of curiosity. To show strength and grace despite the hard challenges life sets upon us. I seek to get a emotional feedback from the viewer thus communicating the social construct we are faced with and our daily fight to be. Painting for me is all about discovery, discovering the truths that lay inside and the lost secrets of life. I have many questions and instead of writing them down I paint them in this way that they may be visually digested and perhaps answered by the viewer. I view painting as a different way of writing a story, except it is on one page instead of many.

My work is a window to my mind of how I see the world, portrayed through colors and expressions. It is a story, of the origin of the universe, and us. I look to nature and the city, I look to language and music, how things live, how things die. But of all I find that color is the most important to me. My color theory is none of fact, psychological perhaps, but the way I see color pertains to how it makes me feel. So perhaps I see through sensations & pains. This is reflected in my paintings, they are meant to evoke feelings from the viewer, that is important to me. To create a experience that is different from ones own, but at the same makes sense, a separate reality or an extension of their own that they have yet to discover. This way I can visualize the future by being still in space. The way to obtain vision two or three steps ahead of time is to be obsessed with nowness; with living in the moment. Thoughts that are childish, vivid and playful, the mind that can visualize the future can influence change there. 

Artists have the ability to discover things, to invent, to change the way people think about themselves and the world. Painting alters perspective in a challenging way that encourages natures beautiful essence. As being a thinker, expressing thoughts visually is a difficult thing. Because we must tackle every question without uttering a word, but instead visualizing it and putting it all into one place. For people to feel, for people to be, and be inspired to be a part of the future and of the things that are still being created.”