{"product_id":"cross-currents","title":"Cross Currents","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCross Currents gathers five fractured figures at the edge of water. Engel paints each body convincingly, then interrupts it with rectangular blocks of dissonant color, so a shoulder gives way to a band of cobalt, a torso to a passage of ochre, a face to a wedge of pink and green. Behind them, a cloudbank, a dark treeline, and a strip of blue water frame the group.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe interruptions are structural rather than decorative. Engel builds each painting through cycles of layering, revision, and erasure, and the color blocks mark where one state of the image was overwritten by another. Earlier decisions stay visible on the surface, so the history of the painting remains part of what the viewer sees.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe figures are aware of being looked at. Two of them meet the viewer's eyes directly while the others turn away or fold into the group, and that mix of address and withdrawal keeps the scene from settling into a classical bathers composition. Bodies overlap so closely that where one ends and the next begins is truly uncertain.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is the threshold Engel describes as his real subject: the point at which a figure remains perceptible but starts to resist a single reading. Identity in these paintings is not a fixed thing being depicted but a process caught partway through.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mark Engel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54258467766636,"sku":null,"price":12500.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0957\/9023\/6012\/files\/0H9A9815_Large_f8434e4c-34bc-4f7e-ae90-25e224643eff.jpg?v=1790282706","url":"https:\/\/www.mashgallery.com\/products\/cross-currents","provider":"MASH Gallery","version":"1.0","type":"link"}