Marvin Perry Mann: Let the World Be
about exhibition
Marvin Perry Mann brings together three related bodies of abstract landscape painting in Let the World Be. Drawing on the emotional energy of mid-century Abstract Expressionism and the intimacy and somber hues of American Tonalist painting, Mann presents nature as both generative and volatile: beautiful, unstable, and resistant to sentimentality.
The exhibition takes its conceptual framework from the Latin phrases Fiat mundi confusa ruina and Nidus ad terram cecidit, which Mann understands as “Let the world be a confused ruin” and “Nests fell to the ground.” Across heavily textured oil and cold wax paintings, more ambiguous landforms, and intimate views of reeds and undergrowth, the works move between radiance and ruin, order and improvisation, and the quiet pleasures of nature and the consequences of forces beyond human control.
Through layering, combing, scraping, and scratching, Mann allows horizon lines, vegetation, landforms, and uncertain structures to emerge. The result is a landscape practice grounded in the visible world while remaining open to memory, ambiguity, and psychic possibility.