Mark Schoening: Shape Shifter

Mark Schoening: Shape Shifter

Schoening explores how an ongoing dependence on technology and the digital interface influences how he perceives and conceives the process of painting.

Shape Shifter presents the idea of the gesture as a digitized data set that can be codified infinitely.  Tessellating puzzle pieces begin as simple computer sketches that are outputted by laser cutting thousands of screen-printed and hand painted panels. Obsessively repeating compositions are assembled and re-organized, and play within a constant state of information overload. Schoening is interested in how an ongoing dependence on technology and the digital interface influences the way he perceives and conceives the process of painting.

The works included in the exhibition are divided into three distinct categories. First, inlayed paper collages mirror the infinite virtual workspace of the desktop where initial ideas are generated and manipulated. Unexpected compositional relationships have been re-scaled into a second series of feed paintings. The feed paintings consist of multiple competing patterns that are meant to simultaneously engage and distract the viewer in an orchestrated frenzy of visual activity. Lastly, simple shop boxes have been amassed into a diagrammatic inventory of current and future ideas that create The Lexicon, existing as an analog storage drive. 

About Mark Schoening​

Born in 1980 in Minneapolis, MN. Focusing mainly on the practice of painting with slight diversions into the creation of three-dimensional objects. Mark’s work has been included in exhibitions in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas and Copenhagen, including the Decordova Museum’s 2008 Annual. His work has been featured in numerous art fairs, including Pulse NY, Pulse Miami, Berlin Liste, Art Copenhagen, and the Dallas Art Fair. He has been a featured artist in New American Paintings, and his work has appeared in Beautiful Decay, Flaunt Magazine, and the Huffington Post.  Schoening’s work is in the collections of the Decordova Museum and Third Point Management, among others.  Mark received his BFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Art in 2006 and his MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2016.

Gallery Hours
Tuesdays 4pm-8pm
Wednesdays 12pm-4pm
Fridays: 12pm-8pm
Saturdays: 7pm-11pm


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