Marlon Forrester

Born in Guyana, South America and raised in Boston, MA, my paintings function as both a dislocation and relocation of self in relationship to Postcolonial concepts of the black male body. This body is in constant flux between representation and abstraction; it is space where a masculine "other" resides.Flow. Rhythm. Space. Marlon Forresters paintings possess these qualities. Their combined effect provides the perfect backdrop for the ambulatory bodies that populate his paintings. Bodies that remain unfixed even as they are pieced together from scraps of paper, bits of drawings and magazine and newspaper cutouts because the pieces are not affixed in a seamless way; their construction appears almost haphazard. Yet, these are warriors bearing the implements and wounds of conflict. Bodies. Black bodies, male bodies, broken bodies, serve as the pillars atop which Forrester initiates a discourse on heroicism. He contends that the black male body has been crafted into a warring body under constant assault by history, by the market, and in the art world. He highlights the paradoxical trope of a broken hero in order to make visible this multivalent assault. Concerned with the corporate use of the black body, or the body as logo, Forres...