July 2012

Anecdotes and Paraphernalia

Mark Earnhart’s work deals with identity through the examination of environments within daily life. Earnhart believes that the physical action and habits of living leaves behind traces to our own experiences and histories. His work focuses on the acknowledgment of our own detritus and the routine objects that form the surface of our personal realities. Through sculptural form, the artist reconstructs commonplace objects using widely varying materials. His method is often a repetitive action; a kind of addiction of constraint to which he places simple conditions on material, concept and outcome. Earnhart often begin with words, stories and sayings to find relationships between language and life; humor is often a result.

Earnhart is interested in objects and acts that happen in the places and spaces we call home. He examines his situation and the details of his life, his own space. What he finds most interesting are things we usually overlook or ignore; the medicine cabinet, the junk drawer, the worn carpet path, dirty laundry, door stops, dust bunnies, the bruises in walls. Earnhart appreciates the subtlety in these things and the way our brains ignore the insignificant stuff to retain a larger picture. He is interested in how simple objects can evoke connections to a specific time, place and event. It is within this familiar that the artist situates his work in order to provoke recognition of our own histories.