Artist M.P. Landis, born and raised in Lancaster County and now a resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., is having his first-ever show in the county. “Brooklyn, 2002-2006” is opening tonight (April 4) at the Infantree Gallery at 21 N. Prince St. for First Friday.
Landis paints to music and has collaborated with jazz musicians in live performances, and music pulses through his paintings, through the seemingly random details of underpaintings that peek through, in the found items and materials he includes in the paint, in partially-obscured writing, in the accumulation of vigorous marks on the surface, and repetitions of sketchy-yet-geometric and cell-like figures. Landis describes himself as a “process-oriented” artist, and the paintings convey, with their obscured details, and multiple layers, a sense of occurring in time.
Several works on display are part of his series of Warehouse Drawings. The series started 12 years ago, closing a period in which he was working mostly with the figure, and after he moved to Brooklyn. “It began unintentionally as a way to free myself,” Landis says. He compares making them to abstract journaling or a meditation exercise – he starts first thing in the morning by taking a piece of paper, dating it and noting where he is, folding it and putting it in his pocket. At the end of the day he staples the paper to a piece of wood and starts painting on it. “Sometimes it might take months to finish one, and sometimes a few days,” Landis says. (They have also been an inspiration for other works, many of which incorporate grids that recall the folds of the original drawings.) He’s up to about 4,000 or so of these works, some of which are in the show.
Also in the show are works from his 2002 “Blue” series, larger works directly inspired by water and its capacity to show surface reflection and depth, and paintings on a variety of surfaces from “Monk Work,” a series inspired by Thelonius Monk and other jazz musicians, some paintings inspired by walks through the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and many others.
Landis has been painting from the time he was a child. He grew up in Landisville and went to Millersville University for a few years, where he took classes in everything but art – “To me, the process of making art was so important that I was not interested in being taught by teachers. I wanted to find my own way,” Landis says. He moved to Lancaster while he was going to Millersville, operated a plant-and-basket stand at Central Market, worked at Isaac’s Deli, helped start a bookstore (the long-gone Alexia Books) and performed with various bands. “I was trying a lot of everything,” Landis says. He also met the artist David Brumbach through mutual friends. “He was very encouraging and supportive,” Landis recalls, and would often stop by the market stand to chat. (“He used to talk for hours,” Landis recalls.)
But it was always in his mind to become an artist, and he finally decided to simplify his life. He left for Provincetown, Mass. in 1989, and started painting full-time. In 1996 he moved to Brooklyn, where he still lives.
In addition to his 20 solo shows and numerous group shows, Landis has also engaged in many collaborative projects with other artists, musicians, poets and dancers. Landis has joined musician Tom Abbs, among others, in live performances, and has also created painting videos for musical performances. Abbs, whose main instrument is bass but who also plays the tuba, didgeridoo, cello, percussion and other instruments, also improvised in response to the screened images, and the music would change over the course of a tour, Landis notes. (Some of the collaborations can be seen and heard here.)
In 2006, Landis, who, like Brumbach and Charles Demuth, is a type I diabetic, experienced kidney failure and spent a year on dialysis. In 2007, he received a kidney transplant donated to him by Abbs. “To Give is to Receive is to Give,” a documentary of Landis’s and Abbs’ experiences during the transplant, will be shown at the Infantree April 11 at 8 p.m. (A trailer can be seen here.)
(Note: This post was edited on Monday, April 7 to add a headline and tags, omitted due to some sort of computer glitch on Friday. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but I don’t know what happened.)
