HORIZON | Marcus Sebastiano
Photography by Matt Kalinowski
Interview by Mark Holt-Shannon
HORIZON | Marcus Sebastiano
Interview by Mark Holt-Shannon
An artist fills their well with the stories and images of their journey. Not just the places they’ve traveled but also the methods of transportation, the rigs, the fuel. Even the detours, diversions and roadblocks, accidents and epiphanies, the leans forward into light and hope and the stumbles backward into darkness and despair. It’s all there, when you confront their work, their expression, their voice. And, fortunately for me, getting to spend a bright fall afternoon with artist Markus Sebastiano at Blochaus, his studio-gallery on Water Street in Newburyport, Massachusetts, it’s also there when you talk to them.
I stay on the lookout in my conversations with artists for that thread. It often comes as an image, some entryway that presented itself, probably early. For Markus, it would be hard to argue against the impact of “the shop,” where he learned to weld when he was twelve. “I loved the smell of burning metal,” he remembers, “tungsten. Still do.” How many times that afternoon did his story, no matter where he was returning from—Miami to start a brand business, San Diego to find himself, or an epic cross-country bike trip with some buddies—how regularly did it end up back in the shop, where he could be found “knocking tin” next to his dad, making a buck and filling the well?
While both parents were supportive of his creative path, they showed that support in different ways. Mom, a public school teacher, a staunch believer in education, bought him art materials when he showed interest and aptitude, and sent him to teachers for lessons. And Dad, a master sheet metal fabricator, creative businessman, believer in self-sufficiency and making a living with one’s own hands, he modeled work in the trades, often a co-conspirator in the design and production of Markus’s almost Frankensteinian visions—bringing together materials to produce or breathe new life. Markus remembers early on looking at an HVAC plenum his dad had made and going, “You made that? That box is sick.” Appreciating the materials naturally set him to thinking about manipulating them. And so at a young age he was pulling metal out of the trash, wondering what would happen if . . . I hit it with the burner, aged it quickly, scraped at it, and then hit it with this spray paint? Okay now let’s take these photographs, put them into Photoshop, design an overlay, and then cover it all with this resin I found.
What am I feeling and why is this image of the sea, the horizon, so soothing?
If it isn’t obvious, another element of Markus’s trajectory is entrepreneurship. Why not make a successful living doing it? Why not build something, an assemblage, both sturdy and evocative, that strikes someone enough that they would pay a fair price to buy, hang, or install it, whether that be in a living room, board room, or restaurant lobby? Large-scale installations, branding, clothing and apparel. Starting in high school, Markus went after all of it. College would be art and so his business classroom was everything outside of school. Finding partners and financial backing, trips to Vegas, sourcing raw materials—think boxes and boxes in many basements—designing and manufacturing jeans with spray paint and a knife, or MMA championship belts where he’s layering his digital artistic vision onto a metal faceplate with a sick-ass patina. Such a profound alchemy of experience and drive.
Recently? Another shift. Last winter he found himself living on the shore, doing what he does: working, making a living, feeling busy but not . . . great. Off, when he shouldn't be. All kinds of success to point at. He started spending time walking along the water, finding something medicinal there; he referred to it finally as “calm.” Naturally he began photographing what he was seeing, studying those images, asking them questions. But the difference here was that this time, these questions were not functional ones about materials, they seemed more personal questions about what was going on inside him. What am I feeling and why is this image of the sea, the horizon, so soothing? Given that this is nearly the definition of abstract art, it makes sense that abstract is precisely the direction he took. He worked and worked at a vision of that simple horizon line and those muted colors, how they worked together to deliver something he needed. He started, as always, on paper, moving to paint, learning and practicing the quick gestural brush strokes of the style, trying to capture that line, those colors, the feeling.
Markus is super proud of the TIDAL series that came out of that time. Proud of his foray into abstract, for sure, but also proud that, at least according to gallery audiences, he was successful at capturing and expressing that very calm he had gone after in the first place. Is there a better feeling as an artist?
It would be unfair to say Markus has lived a charmed life because all you see when you examine his . . . is hard and earnest work. So yeah, right-place right-time, only minus the chance and luck. Markus put it best when spoke that afternoon about the “Invisible Mr. Miyagi,” some guardian angel or force, teaching him practical skills now that he could later use to conceptualize and produce his art, express his vision, and reflect his experience. I’ll say. Wax on, wax off, my friends.
DEEP DEEP | Multimedia on canvas
SEDIMENT | Multimedia on canvas
TIDAL | Multimedia on canvas
