Markues (en)

For the Men & the Others
ongoing series of watercolors, each 40 x 30 cm, 2014 – 2024

The meaning of the script is fluid like the colors, congealing in the subjectivity of the viewer without thereby falling into contrariness or antagonism. The watercolors of For the Men & the Others speak to men and to others. The ‘For’ is therefore a possibility and a transformation at once. It emphasizes diversity, difference, and ease. Quotations drawn from countercultural songs, pop divas appropriated by gay culture, and activist slogans appear on the page and disappear among splashes, spills, and droplets.

These abstract, painted gestures evade apprehension; the watercolors are only legible to the listener. The letters dissolve into colors and imagery—a condition of indistinguishability that cannot be spoken, only observed and heard. The rhetoric is not a reiteration of loud, combative masculinity. It silences speech and waits to be read. The words don’t reside in the mouth, but before the eye. They are audible only to a multitude that does not want to be drowned out, but rather recognizes itself in its difference.