Bio
I am a visual artist (b.1970) from Detroit, Michigan, living and working in Atlanta since 2008. I make sculptures, drawings, and multi-media installations that represent a process of reconnaissance and recovery, often about childhood and the realignment of selfhood as an adult. My current work combines marmoreal (marble-like) abstract shapes and lines with brightly colored everyday play things, balls, arrows, rings, forms symbolic of me reworking my understanding of the true order of nature and my personal position within that order.
In 2009, I presented a solo exhibition at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center entitled Morale Hazard, a comment on the crisis in the US auto industry, in which I suspended a 1965 Ford Mustang from the ceiling. I received international attention for my work XLounge, an artistic modification of a set of Eames Lounge chairs which were included in the 2008 SCOPE NY exhibition and won an award at 2010 Artprize in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My XLounge series was shown at the CDC’s David J. Sencer Museum in an exhibition entitled Consequential Matters considering obesity and contemporary aesthetics. In 2018 my work BIOID: A Bio-Marker Patent Generator was included in the Venice Architectural Biennale and travelled to V&A Museum for London Design Week and later the Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.
CV
2001 MA Eastern Michigan University - Studio Art
1992 BFA Michigan State University - Studio Art
Projects & Exhibitions
2022 TEMPORARY Studios/Art Papers • Atlanta Art Week - open studio
2021 Geoliminal Marginalia- art/urban agriculture project - Poncey-Highland neighborhood/Freedom Park
Conservancy - creative approach to transitional spaces between public and private land.
2019 FLUX Projects - Sound Exhibition, Ponce City Market, Atlanta, GA
DWELLING, Freedom Park Conservancy Project, Atlanta, GA
2018 16th Venice Architecture Biennale–WORK, BODY, LEISURE: Institute of Patent Infringement
(IOPI), Venice, Italy
V&A Museum – WORK, BODY, LEISURE: IOPI, London UK
Het Nieuwe Instituut – WORK, BODY, LEISURE: IOPI, Rotterdam NL
2017 Emissions Gallery - Pop-up virtual gallery in Poncey-Highland neighborhood.
Dave Eggers & Juan Martinez - The Spirit of the Animal is in the Wheels - collaborator. Atlanta, GA
2015 Flow Field(s) - Field Experiment - Hambidge Center/Goat Farm Art Center - Atlanta, GA
2012 Prairie Center of the Arts Residency - research and creative work on Asian carp invasion, Peoria, IL
2011 CDC iFund project - Chromizone - collaborative project with SCAD, CDC & INq
2010 Four Fields, Environ Gallery, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
ArtPrize, UICA, Grand Rapids, MI
ART PAPERS Auction, Atlanta, GA
2009 Summer Falls, Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
Consequential Matters, Global Health Odyssey Museum, CDC, Atlanta, GA
Morale Hazard, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA
2008 Art+Space, Herman Miller National Design Center, Washington D.C.
SCOPE NY, International Contemporary Art Fair, Lincoln Center, NY
Myth of Difference, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI
2007 Special Collection, Gensler, Washington D.C.
Useless, Project4Gallery, Washington D.C.
Function, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI
2003 A Public Construction: the Bill of Rights, Ann Arbor - public installation
2000 Midwestern Sculpture Exhibition, South Bend Regional Museum of Art, South Bend, IN
Lost & Found: Recycled Art, Ann Arbor Art Center - group exhibition
Art & Technology: Polk Competition Art Exhibition, Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, MI
USE: Drawings and Sculptures, Kreft Center Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI - solo exhibition
The Side Show, 700 W. Michigan Ave, Ypsilanti, MI - group exhibition
1998 Midwestern Sculpture Exhibition, South Bend Regional Museum of Art, South Bend, IN
Select Bibliography
2010 Galani, VAghi, BHMADECO feature, No. 30, April 2010, p56
2009 Honigman, Ana Finel, “decorate or deliberate?”, SLEEK Magazine, Autumn 2009, p.103 (image)
Barrero, Granada, “#0000”, DXI Magazine, September 2009
Rodriquez, Matthew, “Obese Eames chairs,” SUNfiltered, Sundance Channel-blog,, September 8, 2009
Keeps, David A., “What we’re reading: Core77 on mutant Eames chair” Los Angeles Times-blog,
August 18, 2009
Smith, Lisa, “Mark Wentzel’s Fat Eames Chairs,” Core77: design magazine & resource, August 17, 2009
Lichtendorf, Victoria, “Holla from Hotlanta: Beyond Tutlanta,” Art:21-blog, May 27, 2009
Aishman, Steve, “Dangling car raises questions,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 23, 2009
Fox, Catherine, “Art has cultural muscle,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 22, 2009
Pupovac, Sanja,.“Forse Abbiamo Esagerato”, PATA Magazine, February, 2009: 8
2007 Gopnick, Blake, “The Idea: A Plus-Size Eames.” Washington Post, Style & Arts - STUDIO,” August
26, 2007
Jenkins, Mark, “At Area Galleries, Singularly Focused Groups,” Washington Post, Friday, August 24,
2007, WE21
Dawson, Jessica, “Green Roofs That Top a Dark Future,” Washington Post, August 18, 2007, C02
Green, Roger, “Marrying Function to Form...Tension Between Art and Industry.” Booth Arts
Writer, May 27, 2007
2000 Coppens, Julie York, “Intermission: Small gestures speak volumes...” South Bend Tribune, August13, 2000
Drake, Jeanette Wenig, “Lost and Found,” Dialogue, Sept/Oct 2000
Cantu, John Carlo, “At Art Center: refuse offers a refuge for creativity,” The Ann Arbor News, Jul. 15,2000
Smiljanic, Ognjen, Tooth: Journal of the Arts, Vol. I, Issue 1, pp. 39-45, 2000
Collections & Awards
Field Experiment, People’s Choice award - Goat Farm Art Center, Atlanta, GA
IFund Grant, Chromizone Project - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA
The Fabric Workshop and Museum - Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program nominee, Philadelphia, PA
Project Grant, Center for Creativity and Arts, Emory University
3-D Juried Prize, Artprize, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Polk Corporation, Southfield, Michigan - Permanent Collection
South Bend Regional Museum of Art - Permanent Collection
Michigan State University Union Arts Council Award.
Hong Kong Crush