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Colorful mural of a dragon smoking a cigarette and holding a beer, with the word 'GENESIS' above its head and a sign reading 'EXIT' in the background.

Mark Wagner

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A colorful painting of a boar's face with a cigarette in its mouth, a beer bottle, a glass knocked over, and lit cigarettes in an ashtray on a table.

Artist Bio Originally from Detroit, MI, I’m the son of an automobile designer father and a mother who was a musician and painter. I received a BFA in painting/printmaking from the University of Michigan.

Even though I have an intense hatred for talking animals in entertainment and advertising, I’m interested in assigning human emotion to animals in my work. When the subject is an animal whether realistic or a cartoon, it communicates emotion in a way that viewers of the work can process anonymously. Yet it’s a rare person who’s never felt desperate or lonely in a bar. But when the one displaying the emotion is clearly fictional, the viewer feels the emotion without necessarily owning it in the moment, but it’s still there.