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Rahn Marion

@rahn_marion

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@cadlavolp art residency (6/16-6/31) (7/6- 7/20)@stoneovenhouse @monya_rowe_gallery
@sheetcakegallery
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Hit to the Soul, with new work by Rahn Marion, is officially open for your viewing pleasure. Join us for the opening reception tonight from 5 - 7:30 PM or from 11 AM on. Marion will give an artist talk on 10.17 at 1 PM and the exhibition will be on view thru 10.31. Don't miss it. Drawing from Medieval manuscripts, Americana, and mythological and religious symbolism, Rahn Marion constructs a visual world where the sacred and the profane, the historical and the contemporary, continually collapse into one another. Rooted in his experience as a queer Black man from the South, his paintings search for the sacred not as something fixed or inherited, but as something continually made and remade. New works in Hit to the Soul are informed by the philosophy of jazz: a structure that creates freedom rather than containing it. Recurring figures, shapes, and rhythms establish a visual throughline across the exhibition, while color and gesture move with the spontaneity of improvisation. Swaths of saturated color ground and frame intricate figures and patterns, producing a tension between intensity and tranquility, restraint and excess. Installation views by Houston Cofield. by @rahn_marion
Next up // Save the date for Hit to the Soul, the first solo exhibition at Sheet Cake from Rahn Marion, opening Saturday, 09.26 from 5 - 7:30 PM and on view thru 10.31.2026. We can't wait to share more on this one with you fine folks. Rahn Marion Jest con Mallard, 2026 Oil on canvas 20 x 16 in #rahnmarion #sheetcakegallery by @rahn_marion
@cadlavolp Grazie mille for the incredible experience in Asti, Italy! Both the residency as well as Italian culture taught me to value slowing down and absorbing the landscape through plain air painting. This summer I’m working toward my solo at @sheetcakegallery and works on paper show with @monya_rowe_gallery. I couldn’t have picked a better place to focus and drop into a new way of painting. Sharing the time and space with queer community reminded me how vital it is to create in places where you feel not only seen but celebrated! I’m learning more and more how community and conversations can help us grow artistically, and personally. I wish Simon and Angel my very best with all they do within the @cadlavolp artist residency and hate to leave but know I will be back! Caio, la mio amici! Molte grazie! by @rahn_marion
Thank you @rahn_marion, its been amazing hosting you @cadlavolp 🤩🤩 by @rahn_marion
Ca' d'la Vòlp is pleased to welcome Rahn Marion @rahn_marion (Memphis, TN) to Monferrato this June. Marion's work borrows from history and documents his place within the Western art canon; asserting black representation and combating moral hypocrisy. His visual language features symbolism, metaphors and reflections of past historical periods, while juxtoposing, integrating, and portraying black figures in the contemporary. He is represented by @monya_rowe_gallery in New York and @sheetcakegallery in Memphis and is a professor at the University of Memphis by @rahn_marion
Artist Rahn Marion has almost always been a member of the church. Raised in Memphis, Tennessee, he quickly became aware that his identity as a gay boy was subject to hierarchies of condemnation and the hypocrisy of a god-fearing ideology — a notion that became especially strong during his teenage years. Though when he moved to Baltimore, Maryland to pursue a degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art, he took a break from being part of a congregation. In addition to openly exhibiting his queerness for the first time, he showed off his Blackness by becoming playfully competitive with his fellow Black students, each growing the tallest flattop hairstyle possible. It was a time of personal exploration and radicality for the artist, and upon returning to Memphis and starting his first real romantic relationship, his boyfriend at the time had become a pianist at the First Congregational church in the midtown neighborhood of Cooper-Young. The church had a hostel for its workers, and Marion’s boyfriend persuaded him to live there and try it out. At first he wasn’t sure how to relate to the church given his past. After attending sermons from the female pastor, however, he realized how fact-based and open-minded they were and that they were regularly feeding hundreds of homeless people in the church’s congregation. The space seemed to somehow break the stratified social classes outside its walls, all walks of life living in fellowship together. He decided to give it a chance and after about a year, he began to warm up to his position there as Minister of Art. He felt affirmed by their welcoming of his creative talents; any amount of effort he put into making things for the church was valued in a way he hadn’t previously experienced. This story was printed in #gayletter issue 22. For the full text visit our Substack: GAYLETTER.substack.com or get this issue: shop.gayletter.com Text by @tylerakers Portraits by @buck.billings Artworks by @rahn_marion Artworks courtesy of @monya_rowe_gallery by @rahn_marion
Special thanks to @gayletter for featuring me on issue 22!! In my former studio space. During my 2025 "Where Spirit Meets The Bone," solo show last May at my representative gallery, @monya_rowe_gallery ! Also thanks to @buck.billings for the beautiful photos! by @rahn_marion
I want to thank everyone who come out to the "Praise The Dying Beauty With All Your Breath" Group show! So grateful to be shown amongst such talented artists. @track16gallery for having me and @coelapossy for being a great friend, artist and shipper of our work! Go check out the work if you happen to be in LA! It will be up until August 30th! Track16 1206 Maple Ave, Los Angeles, CA ~ Track 16 is pleased to present Praise The Dying Beauty With All Your Breath, a group exhibition featuring Bug Davidson, Rebecca Farr, Cheryl Hazelton, iris yirei hu, Kim Kei, Coe Lapossy, Rahn Marion, Alicia Piller, Molly Segal, Camilla Taylor and Lisa Diane Wedgeworth. Praise the world - praise its fullness and its longing, its beauty and its grief Praise stone and fire, lilac and river, and the solitary bird at the window. Praise the moment when the whole bursts through pain and the moment when the whole bursts forth in joy. Praise the dying beauty with all your breath, and praising, see the beauty of the world is your own. – Kaddish: Beauty of The World The artists in Praise The Dying Beauty With All Your Breath explore artmaking and the persistence of beauty in the face of collapse of all kinds. Whether cobbling together a Utopia from the midst of rubble, examining loss and rage, or refusing to look away from injustice, each artist contributes a fragile yet incandescent vision of grief and resilience. There is an inherent tension in looking directly at the most painful parts of our existence and still deciding to make art. It speaks to stubborn, irrational optimism. A willingness to unflinchingly face what is while creating room for what could be. "Heavy On The Hearth," 2025 Sienna Conte on Primed Canvas 5'x3' ~ Based on 17th- 1830 French engravings, of satires of merchants. I’m interested in queering these historical depictions and grounding them in a time that has since passed, offering a visual callback to the overlooked significance of small vendors and commoners of that era, and reflecting  that time on the present. by @rahn_marion
My past show "WHERE SPIRIT MEETS BONE" ended 6/13 ~ This show I've been exploring mysticism and religious themes. I've been going to an orthodox church, and experiencing how the first christians worship. It's been so beautiful, I want to hold it for myself only. But how beautiful it is to share my experiences without words. Thanks everyone who saw or commented, or questioned, inquired, and interacted. It's been amazing! Love. "Bare Heart," 2025 Oil on Canvas 24X24 Growth hurts, vulnerability hurts, and so does love. But that too is good. - - - - - - - - - - #monyarowegallery #rahnmarion by @rahn_marion
From my past show, "WHERE SPIRIT MEETS BONE" "Drunk in JEst", 2025 Oil on Canvas 24X24 - - - - - - - - by @rahn_marion
Last day of my show @monya_rowe_gallery "WHERE SPIRIT MEETS BONE," This show has been incredibly personal to my own world building, character exploration and spiritual appetite for mysticism in religious imagery. But within my own experience, and imagination. This year has been beautiful, hard, terrible, redemptive, and fun. I could go on.. Loss, triumph, and experimental. I'm very blessed with friends, and my community for holding me accountable, and inspiring me. Love you all. and thank you @monya_rowe_gallery for giving me this platform to share with the world. Also happy pride! #forthepeople "Magdalene" , 2025 Oil on canvas 24X24 - - - - - - #monyarowegallery #rahnmarion by @rahn_marion
"WHERE SPIRIT MEETS BONE" "Land of Comfort",2025 Oil on canvas 24X24 - - - - - - #monyarowegallery #rahnmarion #rahn#marion#art by @rahn_marion

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