Robert Allen Fine Art: Mari Marks

Dialogues in Light: A Collaboration

Encaustic Works on Panel

MARI MARKS in collaboration with KIM BERNARD

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION: 4 September – 24 October 2008

Robert Allen Fine Art showed encaustic works on panel by Berkeley artist, Mari Marks. This exhibition included works produced in collaboration with Maine artist Kim Bernard.

Marks' work is influenced by her interest in the deep structures of the earth’s creation, change and renewal. In the Sedimentary Series she utilizes graphite, earth sediments or other sedimentary materials on a ground of beeswax, natural and pigmented. The effect is one of dense translucence through which the viewer sees the rich buildup of layers and textures. In groups they have a powerful minimalist color play and dialogue.

In the Sedimentary Series, Terra I, she has engraved rhythmic patterns derived from nature. A graphite or other sedimentary layer is evenly applied to panel then wiped. A heat lamp is used to fix the sedimentary materials in the currents of the heated wax layers. The finished works have the effect of an archeological record of a lakebed or cliff face but with the added element of subtle color.

This exhibition will also include works created as diptychs by Marks and her collaborator artist, Kim Bernard. Bernard, also working with encaustic on panel, has a similar approach to the medium, producing works that evoke a sense of sacred space. She is intrigued with the phenomena that objects and places have the power to elicit an air of spirituality and in her work the viewer finds both the archaic and the contemporary. The two panel collaborations are fascinating in the elements that are similar and contrasting.

Mari Marks has a M.A. from George Washington University and a B.F. A. from the University of Illinois. She has taught art therapy at California State University, Sacramento and at the University of Washington.

Kim Bernard has a B.F. A. from Parsons School of Design, NYC. She is the recipient of numerous awards and currently teaches at the Maine College of Art.

Mari Marks (Mari Marks Fleming)

Mari Marks has been working in encaustic material since 1992, creating her first painting in encaustic while studying with Elisabeth Murray at CSUP Summer Arts. She has explored the medium beginning from textured figurative work, through symbolic constructions, patterned nature referent paintings, and systematic layering and revealing of underlying form. Her current work is a reductive inquiry into line and texture created through the impact of sediments and heat on pigmented wax.

Marks’ encaustic paintings have been exhibited in invitational and juried exhibitions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. One-person shows include dialogues in Light, a Collaboration at Robert Allen Fine Arts, Sausalito (2008); the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (2008); Ispace, the Gallery of the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign in Chicago, Illinois (2007); Art-Scape Gallery, Walnut Creek, California (2007); Wiegand Gallery, Notre Dame deNamur University, Belmont, California (2006); and Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco (2000). Currently her collaboration with Kim Bernard, is included in the traveling exhibition, The Diptych Project sponsored by the International Encaustic Association and New England Wax. She was included in Hot Stuff (2007) at the first National Annual Conference of Encaustic Painting, Montserrat College of Art, MA; Impulse, National Encaustic Show, 2006, Portland, Oregon; The Whole Ball of Wax (2003), Women Made Gallery, Chicago IL; Encaustic Artists ’99, R&F Paints, Kingston, NY; as well as a Residency at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (1999), Berkeley, CA. She is represented by Robert Allen Fine Arts, Sausalito, CA, and JM Gallery, New York, NY.

Ms. Marks’ new encaustic paintings are included in The Viewing Program of the Drawing Center, New York, New York. Her work is included in public and private collections, including those of the State of California Public Health Building, Alameda County; Highland Hospital, Oakland, California; the collection of actress Halle Berry; Alzo Pharmaceuticals; Hewlett Packard Corporation; a commission for the Hilton Hotel in Sapporo, Japan; the Cerulean Tower Tokyo Hotel, Tokyo, and the Ana Clement Hotel, Takametsu City, Japan. Her work is included in the primary text of encaustic painting, Joanne Mattera’s Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax (2201), Watson Guptill Publications

Marks earned a BFA with Highest Honors from the University of Illinois and an MA in Art Therapy from George Washington University. She is a licensed Marriage, Family therapist and has taught at George Washington University, California State University Sacramento, and Notre Dame deNamur University, Belmont.

July 2008

www.marimarks.com

Sedimentary Series, Terra - Sienna, Diptych

Sedimentary Series, Terra - Clay, Installation

Sedimentary Series, Terra - Cinnabar, Installation

Sedimentary Series, Terra - Blues in the Night, Installation

Sedimentary Series, Terra - Aquamarine, Diptych

Of Time, Nature and the Space Between #6

Of Time, Nature and the Space Between #3


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