Mark Van Wagner
is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A painter and sculptor, Van Wagner’s primary material is sand that he has collected from around the world. Through an investigation of this material Van Wagner’s work is imbued with temporal and ephemeral qualities that reference both landscape and our human condition.
Heavy Weights, 2021, natural & pigmented sand on cardboard boxes, 15x14x6 in
SELECTED WORK
Beverly Allan Starke, curator, says about Van Wagner’s new work:
“I am enamoured of Mark’s new series of sculptures, called Sandboxes, which are made of beach sand from around the world applied to recycled cardboard boxes. They have a raw, visceral, earthy quality, but also a bejeweled aspect when the grains of sand catch the light. Philosophically, I love that one day the materials will disintegrate and return to the earth. And it’s as if his sand paintings have jumped off of the flat picture plane and reconfigured themselves into modular, 3-dimensional objects which can be arranged in endless combinations – very exciting for a curator”.
Exhibition(s):
Trade of the Season at High Noon