Portland Terrain Biennial

SPACE is pleased to announce an original site-specific work by Los Angeles artist, Mark Licari. Mark will be in residence with SPACE from August 5th – August 20th.

The piece, Vintage Vibrato, will be a site-responsive wall work drawn directly on SPACE’s walls. The drawing will weave its way throughout the performance hall and unfold over the course of the artist’s two-week residency. Through the immediacy of drawing, Licari will produce a cast of characters and scenarios that interweaves the natural world and human world in a way that exposes absurdities and weaknesses and also the fantastic potential of our human made and natural systems. The mural, composed of equal parts planning and improvisation, will shift as the artist makes his way through the space. Ultimately the exhibition will tell a story that both embraces and is influenced by the movement, scripts, and sonic waves that are frequently shifting in and out of this dynamic venue.

Artist Statement

Drawing is the expressive and experimental medium that forms the basis of my artistic practice. An array of messy scribbles, drips, splatters and frenetic mark-making combine to create whimsical and energetic drawings. The ideas generated by my drawings inspire sculptures and temporary site-specific wall works that weave throughout architectural spaces.

Follow Mark on Instagram @marklicari

Artist Bio

Mark Licari was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1975. He received his MFA from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) in 2001, and his BFA from the University of Colorado (Boulder, CO) in 1997. In his exuberant drawings, prints, sculptures, and site specific murals, Licari depicts the clash between nature and the manmade, and explores the physical transformation and decay of human objects, networks and systems. Licari’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. His work can be found in many major public collections including: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), Grunwald Center Collection (Los Angeles, CA) and Museum of Fine Arts (Ghent, Belgium). He is represented by Baldwin Gallery (Aspen, CO) and lives and works in Los Angles.