marc t. wise (b.1979, Denver, Colorado) works in paint, sculpture, language, and photography. His approach blurs the lines between disciplines, with a primary focus on the interface between painting and sculpture. His work has been seen in solo and group exhibitions in Louisiana, Utah, and California and his written work has appeared in The Seneca Review, Los Angeles Review, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. He lives and works in Salt Lake City.
Discipline
someone close
asked me to tell
the whole story has been
a problem never quite
knowing which one
was making sound whose
events are conferred with
the majesty of the human voice
larynx mandible lung
the container’s hand
digits another request
from the rolling clouds
maybe not so much a request
but a suggestion
to not be afraid of amputation
says the whole
like hands parts of the voice that are
attached
can feel free to go
to be lost i’m unsure of
these operations anesthetic
one thing
at a time sending this head
downriver the available ears
onshore moving farther from
the water’s edge
in/land further from sound the
head without
its hands an obvious answer
would be mine showing you
the i don’t know
its location its location
a keyword or city
that doesn’t exist in the database
Denver Emporia
Providence Schenectady all found
one after another Tampa
not yours yours
in under-process
the way Smithson allowed the job-
site to exist
as an artwork necessarily
unfinished until the precise moment
utility arrives
practicality [don’t finish it
don’t finish it
don’t finish it]
after all
narratives are useful
they help don’t they instruct
as we learn
from this communion the together-
ness a story allows
an allowance
no one agrees to which is the same
deal we make with our bodies
in that we don’t
so if it seems like i’m holding
something i can’t let go
it’s an unconscious
deliberateness this
abstraction a learned helplessness
for so long
fiction was possible
how the darkness doubled, 2021, Enamel and oil on plywood, 57 x 49 in.
lightning (struck) itself, 2021, Enamel on plywood, 64 x 53 in.
(mis)cut (the missing hand), 2021, Polyurethane on plywood, granite, 67 x 50 in.
