In combining movement with stillness, Mark Van Wagner’s artworks reference and combine various archeological, geological, sociological characteristics, and various investigations of the inner and outer landscape. His sculptures 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. 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. By reassembling the sand back into a concrete substance and onto his humble armatures his work playfully reminds us of life’s cycles.