"Love yourself" is the message of Dear Self, artist Mark Anthony McLeod’s solo exhibition currently on view at Established Gallery. The exhilarating show features interactive mixed-media works emblazoned with uplifting messages and affirmations.
“I feel like self-love is missing in the world,” McLeod said at the exhibit’s opening on Friday. “I know myself—always in a hustle, always in this bustle in life—and [I] never stop to smell the flowers… never stop to say ‘Hey, I appreciate myself,’ or ‘I need this’ or ‘I don’t need that.’ We’re always saying ‘yes’ to things we don’t need to say yes to. We’re constantly on the go and we’re not stopping to think, ‘What do I need?’”
Charismatic figures populate McLeod’s contemplative and buoyant artwork. Visitors are encouraged to use buttons and knobs to activate the works, switching on lightbulbs or Bluetooth speakers. Five doors—"portals into a different version of yourself,” according to the press release—serve as backdrops to life-size characters. Strewn with playful drawings of crowns, dogs, hearts, and flowers alongside motivational text, such as “evolve,” “dream,” “love,” and “think,” the works invite visitors to write and clip on their own inspiring words.
As a Black man in America, a husband, and a father of three, McLeod feels “pressures from everywhere” in his daily life. The strain of “always [being] on the go” can lead to exhaustion and depression, he notes. McLeod uses his art to deal with the stress. It struck him one day in the studio that he was sending messages to himself through his work. “I started noticing the repeating images and repeating quotes,” he recalls. “And then I noticed…I’m letting myself know, ‘This is what you need to be your best self.’”
Along with directives like ‘focus’ and ‘self love,’ McLeod sometimes includes “obstacles” or disparaging terms on his canvases including ‘fear,’ ‘mistakes,’ and ‘doubt,’ but he cancels out these negative words with bold slashes. “I find myself stopping short a lot, not going through the finish line, worried about what’s on the other side,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of time I’ll put ‘doubt,’ or ‘sky’s the limit’ and I’ll add a question mark because there is no limit. [I’m] motivating myself to keep going. Self-doubt kills. It kills dreams, it kills brain cells, it kills hope. It’s a daily battle to fight that.”
Born and raised in Brooklyn, McLeod was a creative child. “I was lost in my imagination,” he recalls. “I would always take things off the street and try to do something to it, paint it, reuse it in the house,” he said. “I literally had a park bench in my room. I just love seeing things repurposed. I hate seeing things go to waste.” For Dear Self, McLeod fused mirrors, fabric remnants, clothes pins, and a trumpet into his vivid works.
While studying photography at FIT, McLeod began merging his love of photography, crafting, and painting. When a stall became available at the school’s weekly flea market, he started making functional items to sell using empty liquor bottles he collected from a bartending job. “There are some beautiful liquor bottles. I hated throwing them away…. One day I started making different things, lamps, fishbowls, all sorts of different things.” Though he received some help from an electrician friend, McLeod is primarily self-taught, adding playful electronic components to his artwork, including light-up eyes or speakers that play “Whatever you want… whatever music helps you to heal.”
McLeod wants audiences to interact with his functional artwork. “I want people to be part of it,” he insists. If viewers interact and engage with the work “it gives you that reminder about these affirmations that I put into the pieces,” he adds. “We all need those affirmations. We all need that meditation. We need these constant reminders that it’s okay not to be okay.”
Along with his current exhibit at Established, McLeod can be found every other weekend in Williamsburg selling his work from his mobile art truck. He launched the pop-up art shop about two years ago, after his mentor, artist Andrew Cotton, gave him the vehicle he previously used himself as a mobile art gallery.
Visit Mark Anthony McLeod’s website marktheartison.com to see more of his work and check him out on Instagram to see when he’ll be out next with his art truck.
Mark Anthony McLeod | Dear Self
Established Gallery, 75B 6th Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view Saturdays, 2pm to 6pm (or by appointment), August 6 through August 29
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