ARTIST STATEMENT
I view the landscape as a reservoir of mark-making, from the geological to the man-made. I’m interested in how nature is represented, the memory of place, and how history is ascribed into environment. Ultimately, my work deals with something lost and my subsequent attempts to recover it: printmaking is my attempt to recover that thing. I’m influenced by maps, land-surveys, and other forms of documenting location. Using printmaking, my goal is to emphasize the product of documentation by dismantling the printing matrix that is the foundation for the image. To dismantle the view and recombine works in ways that reflect land-use and changing environments acknowledges the role of my own hand within it. I see this as a parallel to the frailty of landscape. Above all, my prints are based on representing the pace of change to places I find a deep connection to.
Most recently, I've been focused on creating images where the plate/matrix disappears in the process of making the final prints. This has involved using paper-lithography, reductive woodcut, and heavily gouging and cutting apart intaglio and collograph plates. This is meant to connect the act of making the work to the loss of place. The resulting works become specific documents of time and removes the ability to "go back". Once the image/edition is finished, there is no way to return to its making.
I view the landscape as a reservoir of mark-making, from the geological to the man-made. I’m interested in how nature is represented, the memory of place, and how history is ascribed into environment. Ultimately, my work deals with something lost and my subsequent attempts to recover it: printmaking is my attempt to recover that thing. I’m influenced by maps, land-surveys, and other forms of documenting location. Using printmaking, my goal is to emphasize the product of documentation by dismantling the printing matrix that is the foundation for the image. To dismantle the view and recombine works in ways that reflect land-use and changing environments acknowledges the role of my own hand within it. I see this as a parallel to the frailty of landscape. Above all, my prints are based on representing the pace of change to places I find a deep connection to.
Most recently, I've been focused on creating images where the plate/matrix disappears in the process of making the final prints. This has involved using paper-lithography, reductive woodcut, and heavily gouging and cutting apart intaglio and collograph plates. This is meant to connect the act of making the work to the loss of place. The resulting works become specific documents of time and removes the ability to "go back". Once the image/edition is finished, there is no way to return to its making.
BIO
Mike Marks (b. 1984 | Morgantown, WV) holds a BFA in Drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Delaware. His prints and drawings have shown both nationally and internationally. He currently lives and works out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was a 2017/2018 Jerome Foundation Emerging Printmaker in Residence at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking, and is currently a 2019 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant awardee.
Prior to relocating to Minnesota, he was Director of Intaglio for Maine-based printmaking collective Pickwick Independent Press from 2013-2016. Mike has taught printmaking at Haystack Mountain School of Craft (ME), Long Island University (NY), and the University of Delaware (DE). He's also conducted workshops at art-centers in New Mexico, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, and Maine. Mike has been an artist-in-residence at the Tides Institute & Museum of Art (Eastport, ME), Stone Trigger Press (Abiquiu, NM), Crooked Tree Art Center (Petoskey, MI), and Acadia National Park (Mt. Desert Island, ME).
When he's not printing he's usually out backpacking or exploring rivers! Fly rod in hand!!!!
Contact/Inquiries at: mikemarks.art@gmail.com