Bio

Mark Scheeff is an artist who creates both sculpture and installation. He repurposes his background in engineering (with its emphasis on utility, societal progress and technical mastery) to investigate a set of questions not normally addressed by these skills and attitudes.

As an engineer he has worked extensively in medical devices for heart valve disease, in creating tools for scientists (particularly people working in nano-science) and in robotics research.

He was born in 1969, raised in California, and has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. He lives in San Francisco.

Statement

My work typically ends up as objects or spaces; as something that can be directly experienced by the viewer’s body. These are some of the topics that I am engaged with:

*Gradual accretion or decay and other cyclic phenomena: How do we respond to a process seemingly without beginning or end? How do we experience ourselves when present in such an environment, one that does what it does according to some hidden plan?

*Gesture (motion, light, sound): So much of the communication we have with each other involves various dynamic gestures. How does gesture function, particularly when rendered subtly?

*Paying attention and being aware. How does an object or space contribute to that?

*Products and Progress: what does something look like if it is designed primarily for emotional needs, or for self knowledge?