SMCM’s artist-in-residence Mark Iwinski’s “Terrains of Absence”
ST. MARY’S CITY, Md. (March 25, 2010)—A city’s architecture reflects its cultural heritage, but also its health. That is what fascinates artist Mark Iwinski and influences his work. Iwinski, this spring’s artist-in-residence at St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM), will discuss his work at 4:45 p.m. Monday, April 5, 2010, in Room 321 of the college’s library. This lecture is free and open to the public.
Growing up in Milwaukee in the 1960s, Iwinski watched the dramatic shift in city planning, the changing fabric of the city, and what he calls the plague of urban renewal – all of which impacted his latest work, “Terrains of Absence.”
His previous works feature sculptures, prints, drawings and frescoes, and have been shown across the country, including the Springfield Art Museum; the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie; the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News; group exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum; and an exhibition in 2006, “Ghost Trees and Crosscuts: Intersections Between Forest and History,” at the Wriston Art Center at Lawrence University. An artist’s book was published in connection with this work, which has been part of the recent internationally traveling exhibition.
Iwinski also has taught at several universities including Dartmouth College and Cornell University, and received many grants, such as the 2006 Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts grant for his printmaking and site-specific environmental work with old-growth forests. In 2008, he was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for a photography series; that work is planned for a major exhibition in Ithaca, New York, in 2010.
SMCM's Artist House is an artist-in-residence program for artists and writers to visit campus with two goals: 1) to offer them time and space to create new work, and 2) to develop programming so they can share their work with the campus and local community.
While in residence at the Artist House, Iwinski will be working on a project involving the State House at Historic St. Mary’s City, the American Chestnut Land Trust and printing from an American chestnut stump, and an on-site project during EcoWeek at Annemarie Gardens.