Pablo Manga

Artist Statement:

I use transparent and semi-transparent adhesive tape to make works that evoke both painting and drawing.  I delight in the unexpected sensuality of the material and aim to unleash its aesthetic resonance while also letting the tape be itself.  My work explores the formal properties of my medium, the everyday world from which it is drawn, and the philosophical work of Gilles Deleluze and Felix Guattari.

Pablo Manga is an Oakland-based artist known for his innovative use of transparent and semi-transparent adhesive tape to make works that evoke both painting and drawing.  A former New York City public school teacher, art lawyer and Academy of Art instructor, his work has been shown at Galería de la Raza, Queens Nails Projects, and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco.  His work has also been exhibited in group-shows curated by jurors from the Dia Art Foundation, Berkeley Art Museum, Oakland Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art.  New work from his Linescape series was recently shown in solo and two-person shows “Linescapes” at Farm Project Space + Gallery in Wellfleet, MA and “Everyday is Not the Same” at Branch Gallery in Oakland CA.

Manga began using tape as an artistic medium in 1998-1999 while living in Mexico City, where he encountered varieties and colors of adhesive tape that he had never seen before.  Manga uses the semi-transparency of the tape to layer and blend the colors in a way that exploits both the ready-made and painterly qualities of the medium.  Independent critic Amy Gelbach said, “Layered horizontally in lines than bow and waver almost imperceptibly, Manga forces this commonplace material into a form that works the eye and complicates itself. Tape, under Manga's direction, becomes an intoxicant and for the moments we view his work, we too are hooked.”