Mark Jakel

BIO
Mark Jakel is a Visual Artist from Brooklyn ,NY. Originally from Rome, Italy. As far back as he can remember, he was always sketching..Yet it wasn't till after college when he really began to focus on his painting and discovered his niche in the art world. When he came to NYC he started to push himself into galleries and share his art with others. Yet as much as he enjoys his paintings, one day he would like to create films based around the concepts that inspired his artworks......
ONCE UPON A TIME A MASK...
The mask represents the key to reading Mark Jakel's art, born from the fusion of elements that strike his inspiration. The character that lives in his paintings has a deformity that is hidden by the mask in seek of revenge... The mask represents the revenge driven by the rejection from society and the revenge from the annoying mainstream art world, this style of vengeance is inspired by particular 70’s & 80's film genres such as: Cannibal films, Nazipolotion, Mondo films, Sexpoltation, Slasher, Spaghetti Westerns, film Polizzioteschi and Splatter films...in general from the world of motion pictures.The elements derived from Jakel's inspiration are from such things found in films like Eraserhead and Noh (a traditional Japanese musical drama), as well as from Japanese Geishas. In David Lynch's Eraserhead there is a woman who dubbed 'The Lady in the Radiator'; it was her inflamed face and deformity that sparked what became such a main focus of his paintings. Yet the Noh or Nogaku masks is what made and hid the mystery of the deformity. As for the geishas, it was their soft, yet bright, distinctive colors that inspires him. Many linguistic and stylistic influences arrived through the world of Manga comix, 80's & 70's japanese anime and similar genres, inluding the traditional artists like Utamaro Kitagawa 喜多川 歌麿. His works resonates with the 'International Gothic' period in Italy. Within a parallel artistic vein to the series of virgin Mary with baby Jesus paintings remembered for their iconic gold backgrounds.

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