Mark Shetabi

Afterimage (Brontosaurus)

2010

oil on linen

60" x 84"

Fog Machine

2008

oil on linen

18" x 24"

Tanker (Night)

2012

oil on linen

60" x 84"

Tanker (adrift)

2010

oil on linen

60" x 84"

Tanker In Dry Dock

2010

oil on canvas

60" x 76"

 Mark Shetabi is a painter and sculptor who teaches art at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. His large, nearly monochromatic paintings cover a wide range of subject matter with a particular focus on architecture, engineering and industrial design. There is a low contrast soft focus treatment that lends the images a nostalgic quality reminiscent of old photographs. But keep in mind that many of these paintings are 7 feet wide echoing the monumentality of their themes and subjects. Some more recent paintings reverse this scale depicting such humble things as pipe fittings on canvases only inches across. But it's these epic pieces that initially grabbed and continue to hold my attention. There is a feeling of dreamlike unreality to them, as if such things are barely conceivable, much less possible. That they exist in the real world seems almost absurd.

 You can see more of his work at Jeff Bailey Gallery in New York City.