situated somewhere among midcentury book covers, the title sequences of designer Saul Bass, and a street display of weathered wheatpaste posters, mars ibarreche’s collages are injected with both humor and compassion. Are the messages broadcast in these collages koans, directives, slogans, mere truisms? “To have a light thought you also have to have a dark one,” they explain. “That’s kind of how I come up with the phrases, by countering some of the dark thoughts that I’m thinking of.”
Taking inspiration from the urban settings that have shaped them, from the nation’s Southeast to the West Coast, ibarreche creates a striking form of layered collage reminiscent of papercut book art while also evoking their forebears: Fall In possesses the physicality and verbal-made-visual quality of Kurt Schwitters; Cry You has all the declarative impact of a Barbara Kruger billboard but on a more human scale. Above all, the tactility of these works, with their words nearly lifting off the page toward the viewer, speaks to the hand and mind of their creator.
—eugenia bell
