February 7, 2017
JAUS GALLERY
by Mark Dean Veca
Mark Dean Veca was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in the ‘60s but studied at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles where he has become a fixture. Over the course of his 30 years making art, Shana Nys Dambrot in her essay “Mark Dean Veca: Life | Drawing” says Veca has produced everything from murals, paintings, and drawings to sculptures and installations and in “a range of visual styles from the loose and abstract to the obsessive and meticulous.” His art “truly is the sum of its paradoxical parts and his particular gift lies in making gorgeous, giddy, glorious sense of those paradoxes” Dambrot goes on to say. Opening in September, 2009, Jaus (pronounced “house”) Gallery bills itself as artist-run alternative art space, not dependent on sales or funding, most interested in showcasing artists without gallery representation but flexible enough to make and change its rules on the fly. For a joint show in Fall 2016 with Kiel Johnson, Veca painted this wall surrounding the La Grange Ave. gallery. @markdeanveca @scenesfromthesidewalk