Marquee Projects

In combining movement with stillness, Mark Van Wagner’s artworks reference and combine various archeological, geological, sociological characteristics, and various investigations of the inner and outer landscape. His sculptures often depict moments of impact and reverberations of force. The implications of conflict and ruin are present but so are humor and restoration, providing a sense of intimacy and introspection for the embodied subject. Over the years, Van Wagner has collected natural sand from around the world and combines this substance along with flotsam and pigmented sand onto his layered-relief sculptures. In the exploration of applying mixed-media/assemblage into his artwork, he has recognized sand to be the most literal medium to capture material decomposition – its essence defining impermanence related to time, place and gross matter. Thick and thin spontaneous-gestural applications of glue adhesives and gesso are sprinkled with innumerable sand particles and debris over manipulated repurposed cardboard boxes. By reassembling the sand back into a concrete substance and onto his humble armatures his work playfully reminds us of life’s cycles.

Mark Van Wagner received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied Art History and Urban planning at Colorado College.
 He has since exhibited in numerous venues across the U.S. including, most recently the Long Island Biennial 2024, 2022 and 2020 at the Heckscher Museum (Huntington, NY), 57W57ARTS (New York, NY), High Noon Gallery (New York, NY), Idlewild (Los Angeles), 325 Project Space (Queens, NY), One River Gallery (Woodbury, NY), Marquee Projects (Bellport, NY), Providence Art Center (Providence, RI), Proto Gallery (Hoboken, NJ), Jamestown Art Center (Jamestown, RI), and Nancy Lurie Gallery (Chicago, IL). His media coverage includes articles in Artnet.com, Artsy.net, Artdaily.org, WLIW public Radio Interview, HamptonsArtHub.com, The Long Island Advance, the Chicago Tribune, Boulder Daily Camera and NPR radio, among others. His work is included in many private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe including the Rockford Art Museum (Rockford, IL), Capital One Corporate Collection (Melville, New York), The Weill Cornell Medical Center (New York, NY), Brittany Ferry Art Collection (England, Spain, France) and the Sunneziel Meggen Corporate Collection (Meggen, Switzerland). The artist currently lives and works on Long Island in the village of Bellport, NY. His deconstructive abstract paintings and sculptures are made of natural and pigmented sands that poignantly remind us of interdependence and life’s cycles.

MARQUEE PROJECTS exhibits and represents a cross-section of accomplished emerging artists as well as mid-career artists from around the globe, all of whom push boundaries in concept, subject matter, material, and medium – including painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, and performance. Many of our exhibited artists and those on our roster are included in major institutional collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Rockford Art Museum, The Akron Art Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art – Los Angeles, The Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, and The Tate Museum among many others. In addition to our own programming, the gallery has, since its inception, invited many independent guest curators to mount exhibitions. We also continue to organize an ongoing series of artist talks where our audience can personally interact with the artists whose work is on display, and enjoy in-depth discussions regarding their process, vision, and influences