The Art Box - Episode 122 - Pop Iconography - Meet Mark Brandvik

Linda and Steve were honored to host Las Vegas artist and College of Southern Nevada art professor Mark Brandvik at our Mesquite Works STEAM Center studio.  Mark graduated from UNLV with a BFA in 1996, then from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a MFA in 1998. In his artist statement he writes: “The figure/ground and palette of most the architectural landscape works reflect my take on the elusiveness and temporality of the dreamlike cityscape of Las Vegas and the Western landscape.“ Place, he says, is an important component of his practice. Born and raised in Las Vegas, he often includes identifiable elements of the city in his work. The building in Morocco II is the El Morocco, a motel and café that once occupied a spot between the Peppermill Restaurant and La Concha on the Las Vegas Strip. Designed by the architect Paul Revere Williams, it opened in 1964 and was demolished in 2008. A new art installation created for the grounds of the Overton Community Center is largely complete. Las Vegas artist Mark Brandvik has spent the last couple of weeks on site completing the final assembly of the sculpture. Called “Earth Rise,” the sculpture portrays a “dynamite blast” of rock which also doubles as a dynamic rocket exhaust plume. At the top of the 17-foot-tall sculpture appears a representation of a Saturn 5 rocket blasting off. Brandvik’s work was the finalist selected for the space in a project called “Gateway to Double Negative.” It is the result of $231,000 in public funding that was set aside by the Clark County Commissioners in 2016 for a public artwork at the location. The project called for artists to create an piece that would interpret and point toward the famous “Double Negative” earth artwork completed in 1969 by Michael Heizer. Heizer’s work is located in a remote spot on the east edge of the Mormon Mesa and is accessed by passing through the Moapa Valley.