Marlena Novak is an American artist based in
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
and
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
.
Biography
Born in Pennsylvania, she earned degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University (BFA, 1982) and Northwestern University (MFA, 1986).
The first phase of her exhibition career spanned the early 1980s through 2004 and focused largely on paintings using encaustic as the primary medium, and exploring color theory, geometrical proportion, and texture. These works have been presented internationally in a wide range of exhibition venues, including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Cologne, Art Chicago International Expo, Galerie Waszkowiak (Berlin), Roy Boyd Gallery (Chicago), and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Budapest).
Following grants from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts at Northwestern University (1998) and the Arts Council of Great Britain (2000), her artmaking began to increasingly employ time-based media (digital animation and video). This body of work has dominated her output since that time, taking the form of installations, video, photography, and performance. These works have also been presented at international venues, includin
the National Art Museum of China (“TransLife”, Beijing, CN)the STRP Art and Technology Festival (Eindhoven, NL)Sony Center-Potsdamer Platz (DAM/Digital Art Museum, Berlin)
the Taipei Digital Art Festival (Taipei, TW)
an
the Mondriaanhuis (Museum for Constructive and Concrete Art, Amersfoort, NL)
The ethical scope of Novak’s concerns has expanded in several recent projects — ''pr!ck'' (2006–2008), ''scale'' (2010),Frances-Marie Uitti
Frances-Marie Uitti (born 1946) is an American cellist and composer known for her use of extended techniques and performance of contemporary classical music. Tom Service, music critic for the ''Guardian'' newspaper, has called her "arguably the wor ...
, Jay Alan Yim
Jay Alan Yim (born April 24, 1958) is an American composer of Chinese descent and recipient of a 1994 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Early life and education
Yim was born into a Chinese family in St. Louis, Missouri on April 24, 1958. He attended the U ...
), computer scientists (Ian Horswill), neuromechanical engineers
Malcolm MacIver
, as well as other new media artists. In 2010, she was invited by the College Art Association to serve on the Task Force on the Use of Human and Animal Subjects in Art; subsequently this organization published a report which includes recommendations for future art projects to consider as ethical guidelines. An interview with Novak published in the journa
Antennae
also discusses these concerns.
From 1995-1998, she was a contributing editor to Flash Art Magazine. From 1984-87, and again in 1990, she served as a juror for the Chicago International Film Festival in the Documentary Films category.
Parallel to her activities as an exhibiting artist, she is currently a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation). She also co-developed the interdisciplinary Animate Arts Program at Northwestern University.
References
External links
Artist's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Novak, Marlena
Northwestern University alumni
Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts alumni
American artists
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)