Lives and Works in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Mark Whalen's versatile and interdisciplinary practice explores sculpture, painting and video with scales ranging from small table-based works to large immersive sculptures. Whalen's maquettes are realised in the digital realm, intentionally without gender or physical body, then fabricated with polyurethane and chrome on cast aluminium and spray-painted. In fluorescenthues, the distinctive and exaggerated facial characteristics and body language are comical, while concurrently shifting under the weight of social anxieties. The resulting figurations are part of an overarching narrative: each body part belongs to a single fictional protagonist, cumulating to represent the vast spectrum of human emotion.
Mark Whalen has exhibited extensively internationally, including at Centro de ArteContemporáneo de Málaga, Spain; Museum of Contemporary Art Macro, Italy; National Gallery of Australia, Australia; National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; Over the Influence, United States/Hong Kong/Thailand; Arsham Fieg Gallery, United States; Merry Karnowsky Gallery, United States; Pop68/ Ruttowski 68, Germany; Sophie Gannon Gallery, Australia; Chalk Horse Gallery, Australia; and Sanderson Contemporary Art, New Zealand, amongst others. His work is held in public and private collections in Australia, the United States and internationally.
