SOFT SKILLS
August 21st - September 18th, 2021
Soft Skills: Mark Dudiak
TAP Art Space is proud to present S O F T S K I L L S a solo exhibition by artist Mark Dudiak. This is Dudiak’s fist solo exhibition at TAP Art Space. A foreword from the artist follows below.
When I think of rhododendrons, I think about transition and the melancholy that follows the exhilaration of change. Their flowers have a delicate pink and blue-violet tone that is so ethereal that it verges on the ghostly - soft apparitions that hover silently over soft, misty fields in my imagination. When I first moved to Vancouver from the prairies, there was a small pink rhodo growing in the muddy front lawn in front of the big house where I’d found a room to live. I’d watch the rain collect on its petals from my window as I tried not to feel homesick while speaking on the phone with my friends and family back home. It was beautiful and lonely.
Years later I discovered that Rhodos are a common sight in cemeteries where they generally seem to stand solo over a granite headstone. Over the course of a multi-year research project, I documented graveyards all over the world and I probably photographed at least one rhodo in everyone. This winter, at the height of the third wave I found myself looking through the images of these flowers as I dreamed of a time when I could fully experience the world again. The works in this exhibition speak to the sense of transition, dissolution, and emergence that I have felt since the pandemic began.
Mark Dudiak
Mark Dudiak's work explores the formal interaction of light, colour, texture, and the materiality of artistic expression. Conceptually, Dudiak is interested in loss and the fear of losing (prestige, power, possessions, and loved ones) as an important determinant of western systems of thought, value, and identity.
Mark Dudiak (he/him) is a Toronto-based artist born on Treaty 6 territory in Saskatoon, he holds a BFA from Emily Carr University, Vancouver, and an MFA from Concordia University, Montréal. Dudiak has exhibited across Canada and Europe at venues such as ZK/U Berlin, Projet Pangée Montréal, Forest City Gallery London, Access Vancouver, and Nuit Blanche Toronto.
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