The Art of Brown Tape

Elizabeth: Mark Keisman was an architect by profession, after a stint in experimenting with stain glass. Mark discovered the glories of brown tape which for him was the brush he had been searching for all his life. Today he work on an easel of flexi glass using mere tape to create master pieces, from boroke chairs to incredibly will portraits. Mark is exhibited at several galleries like the Delaware museum of art, he has published and scores of magazine like Wired and he's the recipient of several prestigious awards like the calm lion and the Red Dot design awards in 2008. Mark invited me to his studio min Philadelphia to chat and see more of his incredible art form. Hi Mark. Mark: Hello. Elizabeth: So nice to meet you. Mark: Thank you. Elizabeth: I hear we’re going to be getting some tape art on tape today. Mark: Yes I’m sticky business. Elizabeth: Well I can’t wait to get started, it’s just absolutely fascinating. Let’s go. We’re here at the studio of Mark Keisman who is for all practical purposes a tape artist. So tell me Mark how did you get started with this very unique art? Mark: Basically by accident I used to work with stain glass and before starting next piece tape was just next to me, so I decided to try the tape. So when I start pulling this tape there is a sound, my wife charges from the house. Elizabeth: What are you doing out there. Mark: She couldn’t understand what the sound is and when she came and look at the, she’s an artist too. Elizabeth: Wow very nice. Mark: And so when she came and look at I did she say welcome home, you’ll see. Elizabeth: No way so knew the first time you did it that this was going to be it. Mark: Its like Yeah, it’s like the feeling that I’m alive. Elizabeth: Tell me about a series you’re working on now. Would you sort of connect your routes from Russia? Mark: Yes, yes, I do now, I discovered like it was this red tape recently and I was thinking what I should do to justify the use of red tape. And I’m looking at my parents and friends I decided this would be interesting subject. So I decided well this are the faces of old people faces usually get a lot of character. So I’m working on these portraits now and enjoying it very much. Elizabeth: Now can you tell me a little bit about the film The War collection that exhibited at the Philadelphia airport. Mark: Film War it was my first scene when I started working with, basically it was based on Hitchcock. It’s exactly film war but Hitchcock. Elizabeth: The old black and white. Mark: Yeah black and white. So I decided that it was great, was taped and I needed some images which are kind of embedded iconic. So it can be recognizable because if I do some say like landscape in tape people would not connect to. So and at the same time it made out of this throw away material and its kind of this is feeling of disappearing before, disappearing time. so I think a lot of meaning and at the same time you can just enjoy the image. Elizabeth: Right, they’re beautiful. Now do you find that tape as an art form is catching on? Mark: Its kind of part of street art, I’m getting contacted from all kind of tape manufacturers to use a tape. Elizabeth: For advertising I mean that will be amazing. Mark: I did an advertising project Tusa, a German tape, they still using it in Germany and to Europe. Elizabeth: It’s very unique. Now do you consider yourself a painter with tape? Mark: Yeah I think its sort of painting who has preset conditions like my color is preset and width of brush stroke is preset and I like the limitations. Elizabeth: Now light plays a very important role in your art, can you tell me about that? Mark: Yes its basically painting was like, so light is kind of blending medium. Of course there are a lot of medium embedded in light, you will not only see my work on the conditional light and so it’s meaningful to. It may remind you as a TV screen or movie screen, just light. Window and stain glass, so it’s kind of as important as the tape itself. Elizabeth: Mark starts with the choice of an appropriate subject and works from blue print of a photograph. His easel light box made of flexi glass lit brightly from the back when the light switched off all that is visible is an amalgamation of brown tape. He agreed to demonstrate for us a fabulous pro-chair. Okay Mark, so now you’re going to demonstrate for us a piece that you are going to do that’s fun and auction catalog and it is a Louie XV chair. Now you said that the resort of dichotomy behind the expensive chair and the replica of it in tape. Mark: Yeah I thought maybe it will borrow some price. Elizabeth: It will add some volatility in zeros to the price. Mark: Yeah, I know people not sitting in this chair for pepper mills. Elizabeth: There you’ll be afraid to sit on it. Mark: Yeah, I thought not many people can afford to have it so maybe tapes it can. Elizabeth: There you go. Well we’re going to have it in just a minute, we’re here at your lighted. This is your sort of your easel, right? Mark: Yes it is my easel. Elizabeth: And what you’re using is just standard flexi glass. Mark: Standard flexi glass. Elizabeth: And standard packing tape. Mark: Standard packing tape and blade, all from home depot basically. It’s my art supply store. Elizabeth: I love it, alright well I can’t wait to see you do this right in front of me. It’s going to be fascinating. Perhaps the most daunting test in tape art is the conception of the image in 3D before executing it. For Mark this is second nature, but one must master this before entering into something as wildly creative as painting with tape. Okay Mark, so you’re going to give me my first lesson in tape artistry and what we’re going to do is a tube a 2 dimensional cube. Alright, I’ll try to follow you. How do you not lose the end of your tape? This is the challenge of tape. Oh you’re making this so easy. I need help. So what do I, do I start up there? Mark: Yeah you’ll start but just hold it like this, no, wait. Okay just go. Elizabeth: I have to say it was so much more difficult than I imagine working with the tape and of course being able to visualize where the shading needs to be that something that you know you’re clearly gifted with. Mark: People sometimes writing me like, we hate this material. Elizabeth: Oh its, its not easy for the same reason I get frustrated using tape in real life. Using it as art was just like even more difficult. Well I have to say. Mark: What you mean is art is not real life? Elizabeth: I guess, well I’m going to have a. Mark: So I don’t in real life. Elizabeth: You know it really as crazy though, I will never look at tape the same way again or flexi glass. Amazing. Mark has a spectacular studio with several flexi glass key boxes illuminating many of his pieces. I asked him about a couple replica particularly stood out. So now Mark we’re standing in front of a couple of the portraits from the fourth way series? Mark: Yes. Elizabeth: Which is what is all done in a red tape. Mark: It’s actually a combination of brown and red, yes it’s basically the image build by brown and put on this like red filter. Elizabeth: Catchy, and how many will there be in this series of this portraits? Mark: I don’t know, 7, 8, 10 not mostly 10. Elizabeth: I have to say this has been absolutely fascinating to see your work, it is so unique but so iconic in so many ways. The images that you portray are just for splendid. Mark: Thank you very much. Elizabeth: Mark Keisman is a bold, no holds barred artist on the mission. He is uncompromising about the risk he takes and the challenges he sets out for him self. He re-renders with great mastery that cherish faces and images in our collective consciousness and doing so he elevates something as mundane tape to the level of high art using it as a metaphor for sustenance and preservation.