Mark Anthony Wilson Jr is a self-taught artist working with industrial materials. His practice explores the history of African Americans militant insurgents and their tradition in war. After playing football at the University of Cincinnati and earning a Master's degree in Applied Behavior Analysis, Mark picked up art as a therapist. Mark Anthony has exhibited at The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and commercially throughout New York. Notable residences are Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, The Elizabeth Foundation for Arts, and Worthless Studios. His work has received support from The Other Art Fair, Good Black Art, and Seattle Arts & Culture. Mark's public art commissions include FABnyc commercial project The Guardians with NYC small business services. He has been featured in the Chrysler Museum of Art, Vogue Magazine, Cultured Magazine, and Playboy. Mark recently accepted an offer to pursue an MFA in Sculpture at Yale University.
As an interdisciplinary artist working with industrial material, my work exists abstractly, in examining African American militant insurgents and their tradition in war. Through sculpture, installation, and performance assembled sculptures and masks introduce narrative storytelling that contains instructions of ritual, migration, and labor. In my work, I use metal, wood, objects, and literature to provide a map of this collective memory. This includes metal cutouts of cosmological figures, personally imbued objects, patterned colors, or recorded sound clips. I symbolically convey historical and anthropological material, creating an undercommons for audiences to engage with the legacy of runaway slaves, political prisoners, Black fugitives, and their contributions to resistance and war.
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During his residency, Mark Anthony will focus on memorialization, storytelling, and ancestral consolation, honoring two African American Southern heroes: Robert F. Williams of North Carolina and Robert Smalls of South Carolina. Through assembled sculpture and narrative installation, he aims to fuse their legacies into a singular, reverent form. Drawing from Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin traditions, specifically Orisha shrines and VéVé symbols. Mark will create an immersive space that serves as both a spiritual guide and a site of veneration.
