Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to present "Great Expectations," a two-person exhibition featuring new works by David Hilliard and David Rathman. A fifth major exhibition with the gallery for Hilliard, and a first for Rathman, "Great Expectations" explores concepts of modern masculinity through two divergent mediums: photography and watercolor. Hilliard's distinctive command of a cinematic narrative is at once romantic and disconsolate, oftentimes crafting bittersweet vignettes that grapple with notions of sexu... Read more

Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to present “Great Expectations,” a two-person exhibition featuring new works by David Hilliard and David Rathman. A fifth major exhibition with the gallery for Hilliard, and a first for Rathman, “Great Expectations” explores concepts of modern masculinity through two divergent mediums: photography and watercolor.

Hilliard’s distinctive command of a cinematic narrative is at once romantic and disconsolate, oftentimes crafting bittersweet vignettes that grapple with notions of sexuality, faith, mortality and nostalgia. His subtle manipulation of perspective and depth alludes to a similar distortion in our recollected memories, wistful snapshots drawn upon to form a chronicled identity unique to the artist yet relevant to all. Similarly, Rathman’s mottled watercolors illustrate iconic emblems of strength and struggle, luminary and the underdog. Loosely rendered scenes beckon to their pop cultural origins – films, album covers and advertisements alike – while also acting as collated excerpts from a lost Americana memoir. Mirage-like figures seem pulled from the hazy recesses of a sentimental male mind, or from the filmic cutting room floor as Rathman delineates composites of the modern idol. Together, Hilliard and Rathman produce a sagacious survey of the tradition of hero-worship, and foster insightful tension between conventional and unorthodox imagery of virility. With a tempered use of cliché and common expectation, Hilliard and Rathman’s work yield frank complexities often overshadowed by mythic constructs of machismo.