In The Arena by Mark Van Wagner
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In The Arena by Mark Van Wagner investigates the natural world through his artistic process.
The 天美传媒 Exhibitions Program is excited to present In The Arena, a collection of works by Mark Van Wagner.
- On View: July 2鈥揝eptember 12, 2026
- Opening reception: Thursday, September 3 from 6:00pm 鈥� 8:00pm
In combining movement with stillness, Mark Van Wagner鈥檚 artworks reference and combine various archeological, geological, sociological characteristics, and various investigations of the inner and outer landscape. His artworks 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, paintings and drawings. 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, canvas or paper. By reassembling the sand back into a concrete substance and onto his selected surfaces his work playfully reminds us of life鈥檚 cycles.
Mark Van Wagner, Drawing From Nowhere, 2021. Natural and colored sand debris polymer glues on paper, 15x19in (framed).
Learn more about 天美传媒 Art Exhibitions. The Performing Arts Center Gallery is open daily from 9:00am to 9:00pm. Follow us on Instagram @AUExhibitions. Take a look at our Art Gallery Hours page for visiting hours.
For more information, please contact Eliz Alahverdian at alahverdian@adelphi.edu.
About the Artist
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.鈥℉e has since exhibited in numerous venues including The Bridgehampton Museum (Bridgehampton, NY), Ely Center for Contemporary Art (New Haven, CT), Gallery North (Setauket, NY), Spark Art Fair (Vienna, AUT), Byrdcliffe Guild (Woodstock, NY), East End Arts (Riverhead, NY), the Heckscher Museum – Long Island Biennial 2026, 2024, 2022 and 2020 (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), Jamestown Art Center (Jamestown, RI), and Nancy Lurie Gallery (Chicago, IL).
His media coverage includes articles in Artnet.com, Artsy.net, Artdaily.org, WLIW and WBEZ – NPR Radio Interviews, HamptonsArtHub.com, The Long Island Advance, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boulder Daily Camera 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) 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鈥檚 cycles.