“When my kindergarten teacher asked me what my father did I said, ‘He puts monkeys into refrigerators with wires in their heads,’” says Mark Adkins. “My teacher later told my father, ‘Mark has a very vivid imagination,’ and my father replied, ‘That’s pretty much what I do.’” His memories of his psychologist father showing him the monkeys he was experimenting on as well as brain diagrams helped inspire his ten untitled drawings at Gescheidle. They’re creepy, but they’re also compelling, with a dark humor and precise, fine details that make them seem a bit like scientific illustrations. In one, a glass vessel above a mound encases a human head that’s open at the top and has a tree growing out of it, the grass beside the mound suggesting human hair. In another, a broken glass dome atop a shrouded shape with a protruding tree limb contains a tiny smiling monkey sitting in a bowl.
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Mark Adkins
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Robert Drea.
