Mark Doox

Lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Artist statement

How do you talk about the elephant in the room that no ‘respectable’ gallery wants to touch for fear of being canceled by some nebulous someone? I don’t know, but I give it a good try, anyway. I’ve created a whole diaristic myth about what I call The N-Word of God. (“I don’t make this stuff up—I just record it.”) I sprinkle some Byzantine iconography on it (I used to be an Orthodox monk, and it speaks to me of personal biography) and some Dadaism, and voila! Plus a healthy dose of satire and some surrealism—and it’s Byz Dada, baby! (Byzantine Dadaism). All… day… long, and through it all, I try to figure out the existential wonder and weirdness of being a Black American and deconstruct the accommodating smile of the (horrid!) blackface/minstrel stereotype as a historical survival strategy along the way. Sometimes, it feels like I am being muzzled. It’s par for the course. However, this is my authentic life and the lives of many others: on the esoteric tip—behind the scenes—whether we like it or not. One of the legitimate functions of art is examining our culture and society while unabashedly telling people your truth. I try to be honest and interesting. I see two things consistently showing up in my work: one is a metamodernist navigation between its two poles of earnestness and irony, allowing for an interplay of belief and skepticism, hope and doubt; the other is a deep commitment to a signifying delivery, particularly in my titles, my coding of images, and the text on my...

Artwork