Employing worn-out patterned lace as a stencil, in an innovative process, the Texas based artist creates stunning and seductive multi-hued acrylic
tableaux. As part of the lace painting series, Mineral is an early example of Mark Flood’s experimentation with torn fabric to illusionistic ends. Flood
placed and removed an electric blue pigment-soaked filigree, upon a bubblegum pink monochrome background, revelling in the importance
of medium in his caustic artistic practice. The artist is well-known for his anarchic humorous yet deprecating vision of contemporary culture.
Conflicted about being acclaimed as an artist and yet uninterested in being part of the contemporary art circle, his interests range from the
critique of consumer and celebrity culture in America to the elaboration of intricate and addictive tableaux. The aesthetic edge derived from
Flood’s independent and irreverent art foreshadows a younger American generation including Nate Lowman, Joe Bradley and Josh Smith.
Inspired by Dave Hickey’s 1993 book, The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, which calls for the reconsideration of beauty and the pleasure
of art dismissing the generic concept of beauty as naïve, Flood asserted ‘Hickey made me realize that I made ugly art… but that’s what I thought art
was about- if you made something beautiful, you were suspect…’. (Dave Hickey, The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, Art Issues Press,
December 1993).

Through his renowned lace painting series, the artist masterfully achieves an exquisite and psychedelic abstract aesthetic where the vivid
outcome invites the spectator to explore notions beyond the standard understanding of beauty. Mineral is a fine example of the genesis of
Flood’s practice as an exploration of the ethereal beauty embodied in fraying fabric.