Mark Crisanti doesn't look at things like other people. On dictionary pages, cigar box lids and over vintage stamps he visualizes and then paints characters referenced from his slightly twisted mind. Through the use of simple collage effects he focuses a body of work, that transforms the original material's utilitarian status.
The exhibition's feature is a series of "birdmen" - handsome, quirky male figures in suits with various bird heads painted on dictionary pages. These figures jump out of the collage plane and confront visually. For Crisanti, the dictionary page can be ignored or examined closely. By using these pages as a background Crisanti supports the foreground image and plays with ideas of randomness and coincidence.
Another set, is a series of cigar box lids, in which the Robert Burns image on the logo is distorted as if his head were on fire, turned into a devil, or the tip of a burning cigar. The vintage graphics on the lids make for great visual puns. This is Crisanti's first solo showing.
