Cynthia Mason’s “f**k yes”
Cynthia Mason, "Existence is Meaningful," 2010-11, mixed media, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Existence is Meaningful (detail)," 2010-11, mixed media, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Existence is Meaningful (detail)," 2010-11, mixed media, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "You Can Touch Them," 2010, latex paint and string, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Surface Entry (detail)," 2009-2011, mixed media, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Surface Entry," 2009-2011, mixed media, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Specimens," 2009-2011, mixed media, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Specimens (detail)," 2009-2011, mixed media, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Point (detail)," 2010-11, porcelain, string, hot glue and pins, dimensions variable
Cynthia Mason, "Grotto VII_VIII," 2009, ink, chalk, graphite, pencil shavings, gouache and oil on canvas, 2 panels 80 x 30 inches
Cynthia Mason, "I will give you what you do (n’t) want," 2011, gouache, ink, 23.75k gold, latex paint, hot glue, graphite and glitter on paper, 52 x 48 inches
Cynthia Mason, "Fake Breasts Look Painful," 2010, latex paint and rope on wire mesh, 26 x 26 inches
Cynthia Mason, "47hr-12m-36.4s," 2011, pen and wire on canvas, 53 x 96 inches
Cynthia Mason, "Living Room," 2010, gouache and ink on paper, 18 x 16 inches
In the exhibition “f**k yes,” the work of Cynthia Mason allows us to grasp an abundance of data by giving us methodical tools. Like those that we have used before, these tools are also for sorting memories, recomposing stories and merging parts and pieces from dissonant relationships. In our everyday lives, we call these tools maps, models, analytics and theories. Regardless of how familiar using Mason’s tools may seem, they constitute a communal means for working with an invented world. If this world were to convincingly exist, between us, we would need to be able to see evidence, with a chronology of events familiar enough that it could develop conversational exposure.
We can. It’s there.
Mason’s tools help us see patterns in her work that correspond to our own world. There are material gestures that hold similar formal qualities to the body, such as intestines, brains, skin and hair. And with the iteration and repetition of these forms comes a sense of cyclical clustering, migration, crumbling and regeneration. Shifting from macro to micro causes kinematic associations, as constellations of marks become the periphery of a galaxy and/or the intersections of urban planning. But in the case of this invented world, the patterns in Mason’s work describe not only its construction but the audience’s relationship to it. We are able to see that our relationship to Mason’s content is governed by our [access] devices: the tools themselves.
Yet, as often as Mason’s work attempts to fix its audience on the co-generation of a virtual landscape, via material experimentation, a critical undercurrent remains prescient. She questions her own methods: what is the value of an emulative tool? For instance, a computer is not a paintbrush but it can emulate one. Its gestures are programmable. Its user’s scope of cultural production seams nearly limitless. Through the conceptual alchemy of its use, the tools of a computer turn that which is real into that which is virtual. Furthermore, through the lens of computer technology, our own human behaviors become that much more unreal, our own histories that much more fictional.
It’s possible that Mason’s tools both acknowledge and challenge the virtual dominance of history infiltrating our daily lives, simply by suggesting their use wields results that will never become fully scriptable. Because in a world like Mason’s, the sciences can only be as empirical as the potential of the imagination, and our own intuitive organizations are powerfully reformative and compassionate.
We just have to see the potential.
F**k yes!
-Tobey Albright
