THE FARM

2007- 2017

“The farm represents the epic journey, the quest for El Dorado. Pinocchio, when he must bravely delve into the depths of the whale to reunite with his father. In 2007, I returned to the family farm, the house where my grandfather was raised and my great grandmother was born, which had been left untouched for many years. Together we began what became a 10-year journey. The house and the land became an immersive all-encompassing canvas to me, the movement of the seasons, the sun, the crops, the animals across the landscape, the managing of those movements. It was an automatous collage on a grand scale, one that could not be fully apprehended at once, an interactive masterpiece that required movement, presence, and participation to truly understand Growing crops, raising animals, started a family, resurrecting structures, and mending fences; all the while painting, enthusiastically dreaming of the future.

Delta of time...”

Dream Not of Other Worlds

“The exhibition features the work of v.mann, nine new paintings with nine new videos linked to qr codes, allowing the viewer to watch the films on their smart phones while standing in front of the pieces.”

— FUTURE|Imperfect April 7th 2012 5PM-11PM and May 5th 2012 5PM-11PM Synthetica-M 2157 Central Ave Cincinnati Ohio 45214

Paradise Lost VIII

The LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground… Soil, the earth, the source and destination of all, it is life and death, the grave. The only way into the soil is through the body, the passage of energy through changing forms, for everything except man who seals himself in coffins and vaults, monuments to his pathological fear of the earth. The soil and its tending is a practical art, a practical religion… a practice of religion, a rite. …Until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Dream not of other worlds…

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MAN GAVE

ANIMALS

NAMES TO ALL THE

2011

MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man,

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The LORD God said,

“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

butterfly | alligator | turtle

EDEN

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Three Years

Days

Three

Three Months

“An exhibition of new mixed media paintings by v mann will open Tuesday April 26th at The Box Heart Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA. with a public reception on Saturday April 30th, from 5 to 8 p.m. Box Heart Gallery, located at 4523 Liberty Avenue, has represented V. Mann for the past three years and recently featured his work in the Edward Zwick film ‘Love and Other Drugs’. This solo exhibition will be Mann’s first since the release of the film.

The title of the show, Three Years, Three Months, and Three Days, references the duration of the traditional Eastern spiritual retreat, and is the culmination of the work created since returning to the artist’s old family farm. Using as a studio the upstairs room that once belonged to Mann’s great-great-grandmother, Ida Bell Justice Porter, wife of W. S. Porter, Three Years, Three Months and Three Days started to materialize after much contemplation.”

The feeling of the leaving,
The being and the being gone,
Amplified and repeating,
Windows that never open,
Down the sidewalk, down the road, over the bridge,
Past barking dogs, bottles and plastic.
Stopping to listen to moving water,
Letting my mind go and come back, wishing for things.
When one of us is gone and the other’s living on sleeping in a song,
Are we the best of mother, I start to wonder, eager,
Calm and cooking, we were then; remember?
Again, again, every story ending to begin.

I took everything out of the room and painted the walls and ceiling white. It is very quiet there, and the early morning light from the rising sun pours through the windows, illuminating the room like crystal.