Jean-Marc Superville Sovak
In a-Historical Landscapes, Jean-Marc Superville Sovak overlays figures from Anti-slavery Tracts and abolitionist literature onto 19th century American landscape prints characteristic of the Hudson River School. Several of the engraved land/cityscapes come from William Bartlett’s illustrations, found in Nathaniel Parker Willis’s American Scenery (1838). Superville Sovak employs laser engraving technology and polymer printing plates to carefully remove and relocate figures, which he says “may at first glance appear incongruous” in the landscape—only because we have grown used to seeing their absence.
Each work in a-Historical Landscapes is monoprint on a found engraving and measures 8 x 10 inches. Several of Superville Sovak’s a-Historical Landscapes are now part of the permanent collection at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY, New Paltz.
Jean-Marc Superville Sovak: Quarantine Studio Visit
About Jean-Marc Superville Sovak
Jean-Marc Superville Sovak is a multidisciplinary artist and teaching professional whose work deeply involves his life and the community around him. His current project, a-Historical Landscapes, involves altering 19th century landscape engravings to include contemporaneous images borrowed from Anti-Slavery publications. His Tiny House of Steel, concerns his obsession with the human footprint on our planet. Jean-Marc’s public works include I Draw You Talk, a neighborhood portrait-drawing-as-oral-history project, videos of his doppelgangers, and guided tours of NYC housing projects.
A graduate of Concordia University (BFA Studio Arts) and Bard College (MFA Film/Video), Jean-Marc’s art has been exhibited at Matteawan Gallery, GlenlillyGrounds, Kingston Sculpture Biennial, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Manifesta 8 European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Murcia, Spain and the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City. His videos are distributed by Videographe, Inc., and have been screened worldwide. He is the illustrator of two award-winning novels: Deadly, and Into the Dangerous World.