Studio Work, 2004 – Present (ongoing project)

“Studio Work” is an ongoing project that involves the production of a series of motivational text-based paintings that are displayed in the artist’s studio and used to encourage further studio-based art production. Beyond creating a superficial need for keeping a studio space, “Studio Work” examines the role of the studio and physical labour in creative production. The text works also reference motivational posters for workplaces and thereby draws a parallel between an office environment and an artist’s studio. The obvious and sad irony of “Studio Work” is that the meticulous and time-consuming hand-painted works being churned out in the artist’s small and pathetic studio does not go beyond the motivational, and therefore never results in the production of the kind of artwork that the texts refer to.

Studio Work, 2004
C-Print, 36″ x 36″

Studio Work, 2007
C-Print, 36″ x 36″

Studio Work (Or Gallery), 2009
C-Print, 36″ x 20″

Details of “Studio Work”

Ruben y Hanna, 2006

“Ruben y Hanna” is a collaborative project with artist, Leonardo Marz, which documents a fictional exhibition that took place at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (MARCO), Monterrey, Mexico. Using documentation from a real wedding that Leonardo attended at MARCO, Mark produced exhibition ephemera to support the fiction including a press release, invitations, a catalogue, reviews, interviews, and magazine advertisements. Leonardo is working on inserting this project into the exhibition archive at MARCO to “realize” the work. A physical catalogue complete with exhibition essays is forthcoming.