OPUS Projects is pleased to celebrate its opening by presenting Mark C. Parsons' first solo exbhition, Contemporary Archaeology.  An opening reception will be held on Thursday, September 13, 6-8pm.

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Contemporary Archaeology pairs state-of-the-art technology with traditional craft exploring Parsons' interdisciplinary integration of science and art. fusing the artist's personal process with the collaborative contributions of anonymous authors.  Each work begins with the harvesting and collecting of line-based digital data which is etched by a laser-cutting machine onto a wooden surface and then printed, utilizing traditional block and intaglio printing methods.  Parson employs tools of increasing refinement in order to explore a deeper grain of resolution where universal truths about a human experience are revealed.​  The surface assumes an intensely primary role in these works, framing questions that resonate between the plate and the print, creating polarities of inquiry that allow open and fluctuating interplay of readings.

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The results are compelling and cryptic: tangled geometric figures, traces of meaningful and random operations, palimpsests, encoded representations that have happened at a distance from the artist but to which the artist has given visibility and presence.  It is as if some meaning - of collective artistic labor, of lines left over from technical work, of translations with missing words, of compositional accidents - has been drawn from a hidden place and displayed.  We knew it was there, but hadn't realized what it might look like.

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"I use charts and maps to sail around the world.  I use magnetic resonance imagery to navigate my own brain.  Many recent works take on a collaborative element. I submit myself to a lack of absolute control for the outcome of the work.  As an artist this helps establish an authenticity to the work.  As a person, it portends a need to rely on others."