SaraNoa Mark: 36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E

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Goldfinch is proud to present “36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E,” a solo exhibition of new sculptures by SaraNoa Mark.
 
SaraNoa Mark’s practice investigates traces left by time, as they exist in landscapes and in collective memory. Using lasting materials like carved clay and discarded stones, the artist explores notions of permanence and erasure, questioning why certain pieces of history remain visible, while others fall away and are lost. Through intricate sculptural work that “rhymes” with, rather than replicates, ancient artifacts and sites of antiquity, Mark considers how we task certain objects with surviving time and how, in turn, these objects shape our perceptions of history. In other words, when we only see what we’re reminded of, what do we neglect in the process? What remains hidden, but still present?
 
Mark’s new body of work stems from a recent Fulbright research fellowship in Turkey, during which the artist visited living rock monuments throughout the country. Among these sites was Myra, an ancient Lycian metropolis, in the present-day Antalya Province. Now a Turkish national park and international tourist destination, the site is known for its rock-cut tombs, carved into the vertical cliff faces of a mountain. With further exploration of the area, Mark visited the mountain’s other side, quietly tucked behind orange groves, away from the crowds. The mountain’s “backside” revealed rock cut staircases and tombs, equally as complex and mysterious as the carved ruins of the front. For Mark, this “secret” or neglected part of an ancient site threw into very literal relief questions about pilgrimage and abandonment, value and neglect. “36° 15’ 43” N 29° 59’ 14” E,” the coordinates of Myra’s reverse mountainside, invites us into a new landscape, where what is discarded, buried, and remembered is exposed all at once—a historical record remade, and then remade again.