Mark Pease
Region: Midwest
City / State: Carbondale, IL
My work arises from my fascination with the architecture of
shopping malls, commercial offices, modernist buildings,
and public transportation. I’m interested in these places and
nonplaces as they relate to human daydreaming, artificiality,
and the recognition of our visual sensitivities. I also draw from
op art, children’s toys, and 3D animation. Through the integration
of digital imaging, vector graphics, modeling, and animation I
construct scenarios about these spaces in works that are both
abstract and representational. I explore the line between the
dazzling and lackluster, flat and dimensional, object and image,
and print and painting. I create physical experiences in much
of what I do, either through optical energies that force the eye
to manage contradictory illusions, or through the refocusing
of light, shadow, and space in a way so that viewers are able to
empathize with and attach themselves to inanimate objects like
buildings and man-made surfaces.