My friend, six months of a beard upon his face, had just flown back from Georgia, the last stop after hiking the entire Appalachian Trail.
I picked him up at the airport and, after the hug, the small talk, after the moments when he had my eyes to concentrate upon, the fear set in, the anxiety; I watched his head snap to attention at the slightest movement. To me, it was the usual airport motion. To him, it was as if he saw strangers firing shotguns at the ceiling. The barrage was too much, the information, the quick succession, and for the week he stayed in my apartment I would often catch him with his eyes closed dreaming far off dreams back toward desolation.
I do not have the luxury of escape. In this century, in this moment, few of us do. Information piles up: the advertisements, the mechanisms, the media, the people. I am attached to it, in the midst of it, a part of it. However, as a painter, I am also a witness and a reactionary. My paintings are manifestations of the same barrage my friend shied away from. The paintings speak of information explosions, where an entire environment can be physically contained in a seamlessly presented two-dimensional world.
It is a reaction to the age of technology we find ourselves living in. The way we look at, perceive, and process ideas has changed, and because of that, because of what the viewer brings to the experience, these painting could not have been created in any other time. This is not so much a comment on myself as it is the viewer. They now have the ability to take in numerous ideas and aesthetic techniques all at once as a consequence of their everyday lives. What I am doing is letting the ideas fall in a frozen plane, allowing for further investigation.
Art Education: 2006 BFA Massachusetts College of Art (Painting)
Solo Exhibitions:
2011 Mar: Pulse Art Fair Blythe Projects New York NY
2010 Mar: Cloudcuckooland Blythe Projects LA CA
2009 Nov: Cloudcucklooland MFJ Boston MA
2008 May: SOWA Spring Walk Boston MA
2007 Mar: Mark Schoening Rhys Gallery Boston MA
2006 Sep: South End Open Studios Boston MA
May: SOWA Spring Walk. Boston MA
Feb: B. Disintegration. Montserrat College of Art Beverly MA
Jan: B. Disintegration. Francesca’s Boston MA
2005 Oct: Balletic Disintegration. National Arts Club New York NY
Sep: South End Open Studios Boston MA
Jun: Commentary. Boston Public Library Boston MA
May: SOWA Spring Walk Boston MA
Apr: Project 604+. Delux Boston MA
Jan: New Work. The Colony Group Boston MA
2004 Nov: Women. The Cantata Jamaica Plain MA
Sep: South End Open Studios Boston MA
Aug: Project 604. National Arts Club New York NY
May: SOWA Spring Walk Boston MA
Mar: Now in Color. Prudential Gallery Boston MA
Jan: I was the Kid. Phoenix Landing Cambridge MA
2003 Sep: South End Open Studios Boston MA
Group Exhibitions:
2010 Dec: Pulse Art Fair Blythe Projects Miami FL
Oct: Plain Air Cinders Gallery New York NY
Sep: San Diego Art Fair Blythe Projects San Diego CA
Jan: Work in Progress Blythe Projects LA CA
2009 Feb: B/D Retrospective Paul Kopeikin Gallery LA CA
May: Fresh LA Moca LA CA
Oct: The Pop of Colors POV Evolving LA CA
Nov: LAXART Auction LAXART LA CA
2008 May: Decordova Annual Decordova Museum Lincoln MA
2007 Dec: Aqua Art Fair, Rhys Gallery Miami FL
Oct: Berliner Liste Fair Rhys Gallery Berlin Germany
Mar: inFLUX. Laconia Gallery Boston MA
Feb: Red Dot Art Fair Rhys Gallery New York NY
2006 Nov: M. Schoening/P. Reynolds Nozoku Gallery Atlanta GA
Nov: Apenest Opening Orchard Boston MA
Oct: Boston Warf Lights Up. FPAC/Ryhs Gallery Boston MA
Sep: Size Matters. Rhys Gallery Boston MA
Mar: Legends of Style “ICONS” Boston MA
Feb: CAC Exhibition. 808 Gallery Boston MA
2005 Oct: Fort Point Open Studios Boston MA
Oct: Legends of Style III BCEC Boston MA
2004 Dec: Destruction. Gallery 326 Boston MA
Jan: Roderick vs. Schoening Gallery 326 Boston MA
Awards: 2006 Spring: FA2D departmental award, Mass Art
2005 Spring: Yale Norfolk Summer Program Nomination
2004 Spring: FA2D departmental award, Mass Art
Press:
2010 Jan: Studio Visit Beautiful Decay Online LA CA
2009 June: Leora Lutz THE MAGAZINE A to Z LA CA
2008 Jul: Featured Artist My Love For You Blog
2007 May: Featured Artist Dailyserving.com 5.25.07
Apr: “Shaun EL C. Leonardo and Mark Schoening @ RHYS”
Big Red and Shiny Issue 61 Heidi Martinson
Apr: “Linda Price-Sneddon and Mark Schoening: “inFLUX””
Boston Globe Cate McQuiad
Mar: “Comic Chamelon” Boston Globe
Mar: “Shaun El C. Leonardo + Mark Schoening”
Weekly Dig Jason Feifer
Mar: “inFLUX @ Laconia Gallery”
Big Red and Shiny Issue 60 Jon Petro
2006 Oct: Apenest Magazine, Boston MA
2006 Feb: Artist talk: Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA
2005 Dec: “Artists Drawing on a New Medium”
Boston Globe Janice Oleary
Dec: “South End Abstractions” B-Roll Films, Boston MA
Collections: Private Collections of:
Decordova Museum
John and Barbara Lee
Beth Marcus
Charles Spada
Bernard Toale
Raymond Green
Anthony Tuck
Deirdre Noonan
Adam Segel