http://pretentiousartist.com is an online portfolio of Mark Mozaz Wallis, political activist, troublemaker, self-styled genius and artist-wordsmith, struggling for personal stability in a world in need of therapy.
Mozaz has never been known to do the expected. In previous phases we might have expected him to respond to impending war, industrial decline, increasing inequality and creeping racism with anger, semi-coherent invective, unpredictable and self-defeating behavior driven by an all-consuming angst.
Now he's moved to another level, tapping into the healing power of Mother Earth to respond creatively, obliquely, but coherently, in a way that you just can't stop thinking about. The minimal, wordless images he presents are a quiet, minimal response to our media-saturated environment. They have a way of getting under the skin.
Here we have images of Sheffield, documenting a native's 38 year
obsession with the city in which he was born. Is it love? Perhaps, but the experience has been a troubled affair: we see disconcerting pictures of a landscape in transition, inner-city spaces under surveillance, abandoned buildings, burnt-out cars and architecture designed with security in mind, but all transformed through the camera lens into objects of strange beauty.
Stepping back from explicit political activism (Mozaz's personal history reads like an urban legend) his current response is no less political. He has found a home with his beloved cat, and enjoys the simple pleasures in life that most of us take for granted. He regards his vacuum cleaner as a real luxury, and positively enjoys operating his decadent washing machine.
It's good to know that someone has pierced the illusion and is stalking the streets, camera in hand, to search out what's really happening in the city. As the CCTV watches us, Mozaz is watching them.
Pretentious Artist Dot Com seems a peculiarly appropriate banner under which to comment on a city attempting to puff itself into the information economy with a "Cultural Industries Quarter" where, in his view, "A bunch of middle class, middle brow middle managers snort white powder and divide up the takings." Meanwhile, flying beneath their radar, Mozaz will engage you with images that say far more than a copy of Socialist Worker or the samizdat blast Collectable Anorak, for which he wrote and created images.
In his own words:
"In consideration with my illness of M.E. I do not have the time or energy to commit to such a publication. In truth it eats you and takes you into conflict and the negative. We are all looking for our own paths, and here the truth is I have found mine. Of course happiness is all relative and inside I'm as angry, confused and scared as the next person about a world in which Bush talks of dropping 800 bombs on the people of Iraq in day one."
"Photography and what I'm doing at this moment is my anti war message and my anti everything message. In truth I'm a nihilist but don't tell anyone because of their misconceptions. I prefer to say I'm a communist with leanings towards the spiritual. I feel people can deal with this better."
There is talk of a future show of his work at Access Space. Of course you can visit them online ( http://access.lowtech.org) but perhaps a little human contact is better. Just walk in!
Contact:
Mark Mozaz Wallis
markmozazwallis@lowtech.org
Phone: 0781 4625286
http://pretentiousartist.com
Visit Access Space:
11am-7pm, Tuesday-Saturday
1 Sidney Street, Sheffield.
Phone: 0114 2495588
http://access.lowtech.org
======END======
he moved his eye across the landscape called life and looked up on the world through his third eye as he watched the earth die and come into new life we call spring.
Now he's moved to another level, tapping into the healing power of Mother Earth to respond creatively, obliquely, but coherently, in a way that you just can't stop thinking about. The minimal, wordless images he presents are a quiet, minimal response to our media-saturated environment. They have a way of getting under the skin.
Here we have images of Sheffield, documenting a native's 38 year
obsession with the city in which he was born. Is it love? Perhaps, but the experience has been a troubled affair: we see disconcerting pictures of a landscape in transition, inner-city spaces under surveillance, abandoned buildings, burnt-out cars and architecture designed with security in mind, but all transformed through the camera lens into objects of strange beauty.
Stepping back from explicit political activism (Mozaz's personal history reads like an urban legend) his current response is no less political. He has found a home with his beloved cat, and enjoys the simple pleasures in life that most of us take for granted. He regards his vacuum cleaner as a real luxury, and positively enjoys operating his decadent washing machine.
It's good to know that someone has pierced the illusion and is stalking the streets, camera in hand, to search out what's really happening in the city. As the CCTV watches us, Mozaz is watching them.
Pretentious Artist Dot Com seems a peculiarly appropriate banner under which to comment on a city attempting to puff itself into the information economy with a "Cultural Industries Quarter" where, in his view, "A bunch of middle class, middle brow middle managers snort white powder and divide up the takings." Meanwhile, flying beneath their radar, Mozaz will engage you with images that say far more than a copy of Socialist Worker or the samizdat blast Collectable Anorak, for which he wrote and created images.
In his own words:
"In consideration with my illness of M.E. I do not have the time or energy to commit to such a publication. In truth it eats you and takes you into conflict and the negative. We are all looking for our own paths, and here the truth is I have found mine. Of course happiness is all relative and inside I'm as angry, confused and scared as the next person about a world in which Bush talks of dropping 800 bombs on the people of Iraq in day one."
"Photography and what I'm doing at this moment is my anti war message and my anti everything message. In truth I'm a nihilist but don't tell anyone because of their misconceptions. I prefer to say I'm a communist with leanings towards the spiritual. I feel people can deal with this better."
There is talk of a future show of his work at Access Space. Of course you can visit them online (
http://access.lowtech.org) but perhaps a little human contact is better. Just walk in! Contact:
Mark Mozaz Wallis
markmozazwallis@lowtech.org Phone: 0781 4625286
http://pretentiousartist.com Visit Access Space:
11am-7pm, Tuesday-Saturday
1 Sidney Street, Sheffield.
Phone: 0114 2495588
http://access.lowtech.org ======END======
he moved his eye across the landscape called life and looked up on the world through his third eye as he watched the earth die and come into new life we call spring.
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