Marcus Leslie Singleton.
Photo: ALFONSO DURAN
Next Big Thing: Marcus Leslie Singleton
The self-taught creative's scenes of everyday life elevate stories of his community while chronicling and interpreting his own experience as a queer Black man
A voracious observer, painter Marcus Leslie Singleton is part documentarian, part humanist romantic. His scenes of everyday life are a way of elevating stories of his community and of chronicling and interpreting his own experience as a queer Black man.
Self-taught, Singleton paints in a flattened, graphic, almost illustrational style, typically on wood panels, using expressive brushwork and variations in color that give his subjects emotional, psychic resonance. “I like to think about the mood of an object rather than how the object looks in reality,” says the artist, whose paintings can invite a range of readings with “different aspects people can connect to,” as he puts it.
“Marcus uses painting as a metaphor for a moment in time, working in a two-dimensional style that makes me think of Alex Katz”
brian j. Mccarthy
Marcus Leslie Singleton, Elliyoun, 2023. Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MITCHELL-INNES & NASH, NEW YORK
Influences: Singleton owes an unmistakable debt to figurative modernist Jacob Lawrence, who spent the latter part of his career in Singleton’s hometown of Seattle. “My first time going to the Seattle Art Museum, they had his ‘Migration’ series, and that kind of visual dialogue was superspecial,” says Singleton, who now lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. “I had never thought about Black artists before, but when I found out about his life and work, I was just like, Okay, yeah, this is what I want to do. ”
Up next: Through February, the Journal Gallery in Los Angeles will be showing works related to a residency Singleton did in Ivory Coast. The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati will present his first solo museum exhibition, opening in June, featuring a dozen new pieces as well as a selection of earlier examples connected to the theme of interior spaces.
Marcus Leslie Singleton, Helen's Hallway-Study of Yellow Vase, 2023. Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MITCHELL-INNES & NASH, NEW YORK
Marcus Leslie Singleton, Man's Soul Turning into a Rock, 2023. Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MITCHELL-INNES & NASH, NEW YORK
Marcus Leslie Singleton, Shea Butter Babies, 2023. Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MITCHELL-INNES & NASH, NEW YORK
Marcus Leslie Singleton, Razor, 2023. Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MITCHELL-INNES & NASH, NEW YORK
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2024 Winter Issue under the headline “Next Big Things.” Subscribe to the magazine.
Cover: Marcus Leslie Singleton.
Photo: ALFONSO DURAN
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