Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcus Jansen.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born in 1968 in New York while residing in the South Bronx during the rise of graffiti art. I later moved to Queens NY, where I started school which led me to exhibit my first painting at the “Lever House” in Manhattan at age six. My painting of a male lion was selected during a New York City students art competition. It became my first public exhibition. I left New York City right before the explosion of the NY punk rock and Hip Hop art scene in the early ’80s and was transplanted from the big apple to Moenchengladbach, Germany, my father’s birthplace, where I was placed into a German-speaking school. It would be the German Expressionist painters there during travels to cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and the new action painters from New York that left their footprint on me. I met Manhattan-based Graffiti writer WEST Rubinstein aka WESTONE, in 1987 on one of my trips back home. He was a big inspiration for me to start painting and I did during an explosion of a graffiti art movement with one of my first paintings going to LL Cool J through Babs Director of Fubu Amsterdam at the time. I joined the Army in 1989 and was immediately sent to Desert Storm and returned to attend art therapy classes that brought me back to painting.
Please tell us about your art.
My art is a self-exploration of myself and things around me mostly inspired by the politics of the day and a visual reaction to our world we live in. I’ve always been interested in the human condition, so painting gives me an opportunity to explore that. I hope my art gets people to critically think in an age where virtually everything works against that. It is the anti dose to propaganda and allows viewers to take time an observe. It’s as well a response as it is a historic documentation of a post 911 era while being critical and questioning our current actions and examining power and oppressed. Most take place in urban environments.
What do you think about the conditions for artists today? Has life become easier or harder for artists in recent years? What can cities like ours do to encourage and help art and artists thrive?
Both depending on where you are in your career. I think for already established artists the opportunities are more because art is now considered investment and everyone want in early. For emerging artists, it may present challenges in first years unless they are smart with their business and marketing sense. The ability to use the internet and other tools to create your market is crucial. I’m speaking strictly from a business standpoint now. Artists need to stay serious in who they are and reflect that. That’s contributing.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My website is www.marcusjansen.com for information. We have a US traveling museum exhibition coming up in 2020 starting at Cornell Fine Arts Museum next year.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.marcusjansen.com; www.marcusjansen.com/prints
- Email: unitaspaceinfo@gmail.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/marcus__jansen
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/unitaspace
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/marcus_jansen
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