Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art proudly presents the opening of Eric Finzi: FEEL, a special one-week exhibition which will be on view from March 7-15 before traveling to New York City. An accomplished painter, dermatological surgeon, scientist and author, this is Eric Finzi's first exhibition in San Francisco.

The exhibition showcases Finzi's mixed media and epoxy resin paintings all centering on a single subject: Augustine, the documented patient of neurologist Professor Jean-Martin Charcot at the notorious Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. Institutionalized for hysteria in the 1870s, the young woman was, for many years, the subject of experimental treatments and lengthy photographic documentation of her episodic outbursts. After several years of incarceration, Augustine disguised herself as a man and escaped the psychiatric ward, never to be seen again. 

Created using syringes and needles filled with pigment and epoxy resin, FEEL's mixed media compositions depict the disturbing treatments imposed on the young patient while highlighting themes of danger, dynamism, fear and loss. The evocative and haunting paintings --combining heat, cold, wind, gravity, viscosity-- appear as charged and uncontrollable in subject matter as they are in their medium. The artist describes his works as a play in three Acts: The resin used creates a series of chemical reactions, allowing the paint to move after application until it reaches its final state -- the image that the viewer sees. 

Eric Finzi: FEEL builds on momentum created by the release of his recent book, THE FACE OF EMOTION: How Botox Affects Our Moods and Relationships (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2013). 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

A native New Yorker, Eric Finzi has been studying and creating art since he was ten years old. He was a member of the Arts Student League in New York City and attended Greenwich House School of Pottery with a scholarship. He attended University of Pennsylvania where he received a degree in biology and fine arts. Finzi completed his residency at John Hopkins Hospital in Dermatology while also pursuing his passion for painting and sculpture. The artist's fascination with and investigation into depression is evident in both his medical and artistic careers.

Finzi, one of Washington, D.C.'s most renowned dermatological surgeons, has studied the effects of physical expression on our emotional state for nearly two decades. The result of his study - THE FACE OF EMOTION: How Botox Affects Our Moods and Relationships, recently published by Palgrave-MacMillan, reveals shocking evidence that our facial expressions are not secondary to, but rather a central driving force of our emotions. His research shows that using Botox to manipulate expression has a positive effect on clinically depressed patients.