Michael Marks was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and spent his formative years growing up in rural Georgia. In eighth grade he acquired a set of oil paints from his grandmother, a MAD magazine from an older cousin, and took a computer coding class at an after school program. He has lived most of his artistic life between these experiences. Later, he received his BA from Georgia College and State University and MFA from Clemson University.
Marks was a co-founder and director of the ThreeCitiesGroup artist collective, active for nearly a decade across the Southeast. Working across a range of materials and techniques, his creative work has been shown nationally and internationally in over eighty exhibitions in twenty states; in US cities including New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Saint Louis, Austin, and Chicago, and internationally in Copenhagen, Prague, and Perth. His writings on contemporary art and education have been published by Temporary Art Review and the Paris College of Art Press, and he has served as a board member for FATE (Foundations in Art: Theory and Education) and as Editor of FATE In Review, an academic journal focused on arts education and visual culture. Currently, Marks is an Associate Professor of Art and Chair of The Department of Art + Design at the South Carolina School of the Arts.
My work reflects my life as a human being and maker of images in the twenty-first century. I use a wide variety of processes including: painting, drawing, installation, video, and virtual reality software to create visual experiences. These works blend imagery and techniques from both high and low art sources, often assimilating the visual languages of classical painting, animation, illustration, and comics into singular or site-specific works.
I am interested in using the signifiers of history as a way to build potential stories about the present and our potential future. My work features deconstructed and distorted realities that traverse themes of science fiction, changes in the natural world, symbols of permanence, puzzles, and my role as an artist in society. They are moments that both reveal and obscure meaning while celebrating their own illusion. Within this assortment of images and environments, I invite viewers to contemplate and explore the collection of narratives present in these visual possibilities. What will our society be remembered for after we’re gone? What will we leave behind, when we are left to float in the void of space or the memories of others?
104 Midland St. Greenville SC 29607 478. 230. 3284