“I was trained as a painter and for years worked with paint and canvas, but found that I was more intrigued by the process of making an artwork than by the final object. I watched the evolution of each painting I worked on, and enjoyed the many moments of creation and destruction that are woven into that process. In 1995 when I began working with computer software as a medium, I found that I could make art that was permanently in a state of flux, always evolving, always a potential for change, never a final object. Since that realization I have not painted again. Now when I make art with software, I’m exploring time, motion, transitions, and forces. Particularly I look for the ways that humans try to grasp and hold, to assert power and control in this new environment.

With the rapid growth of computer media, we increasingly live and navigate in a world composed of energy: electrical, magnetic and light. Digital media infuse our lives as never before. In this environment, power is no longer associated with physical objects, but with the persistence of ideas in the collective consciousness of the media.

In my work I explore the excitement and anxiety of this transitional moment. My work often starts with a question. If the Internet had a flag, what would it look like? Is there such thing as decay in a digital world? What would a monument look like in a space made of software? This last question gave rise to the series of works in which I created a “soft” Empire State Building: a 3D model of the famous skyscraper that appears to soften and melt, writhing almost organically, then struggle to return to it’s original form. Teetering on the line between organism and architecture, these pieces explore the collision between steel and software as the dominant medium of power. I’m inspired by Cubism — a form that arose during another period of rapid transition — and also draw on Francis Bacon’s figures, with a nod to the soft scultpures of Claes Oldenburg. I work simultaneously in painting, sculpture, photography, and animation, bringing these forms together to represent an object that is immaterial, ephemeral, almost cloudlike, yet completely durable and real in it’s own right.”

Mark Napier, 2007

Born in 1961 in the USA
Lives and works in New York

EDUCATION
1984  BFA, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 
2009   
Venus 2.0, DAM GALLERY Berlin, Germany
2007 
Mark Napier and John Simon, DAM GALLERY Berlin, Germany
New Work, bitforms Gallery, New York
2006
The Cyclops Series, Grossman Gallery, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania
2005
Empire, bitforms Gallery, New York
2003
Sacred Code, bitforms Gallery, New York

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015
Come as You Are: Art of the 1990s, Montclair Museum, New Jersey, USA
A Brief History of the Future, Royal Museums of Fine Art, Brussels, Belgium
2012
World on a Wire, bitforms gallery, New York
2011
2nd Mostra de Arte Digital, Galerie Marta Traba, Memorial da América Latina, São Paulo, Brazil
net.flag highlights, Big Screen Plaza, Eventi Hotel, New York
Mods & Hackers, Young Projects, Los Angeles, California
Happy Tech, Fondazione Marino Golinelli, Palazzo di Re Enzo, Bologna, Italy
2010
Mois Multi 2010, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Data Poetics, Google Inc (curated by Chelsea Art Museum), New York
2009
Hybrid Geographies, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York
KIOSK, STRP Festival, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Fluid Architectures, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Art and Electronic Media, bitforms gallery, New York
2008
Digital Safari, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio
Holy Fire: Art of the Digital Age, iMAL Center for Digital Culture and Technology, Brussels, Belgium
13th Art Biennial, Pančevo, Serbia
2007 
NETworking Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel
Ars Electronica – Digital Art and Magic Moments Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, China
Source Code, Eyebeam Atelier, New York
2006 
Further Processing, Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz, Austria
Am, Eretz, Medina The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon, Israel
2005   
bitforms Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
Connessioni Leggendarie, Mediateca di Santa Teresa, Milan, Italy
Pintar sense pintar, Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida, Spain
2004 
Hyper-Runt, In Liquid, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Villette Numérique, la Villette, Paris, France
2003
Pages, Christine Rose Gallery, New York
Hilchot Shchenim, Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon, Israel
Interactive Design, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Abstraction Now, Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, Austria
2002
Future Cinema, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
net.flag, exhibited at Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
The Waiting Room, Bitforms Gallery, New York
The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Transmediale.02, Berlin, Germany
Princeton Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey
2001
Animations P.S.1, Long Island City, New York
net.ephemera, Gallery of the Moving Image, New York
Data Dynamics, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
010101, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
2000
Call and Response, The Kitchen, New York
Ideogram Part 2″, Gallery of the Moving Image, New York
World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Protocol Prone, Bard College, Annandale, New York
The Anagrammatical Body, ZKM – Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
AEN – Art Entertainment Network, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1999
Net_condition, ZKM – Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
Boston Cyberarts Festival, Boston, Massachiusetts
Reel New York, Web New Media Group Thirteen/WNET
1998
Transmediale 98, Berlin, Germany
Digital 98, Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. New York
1997
Transmediale 97, Berlin, Germany
1996
Art Carnival, Eighth Floor Gallery, Soho, New York
ThreeManShow, 450 Broadway Gallery, Soho, New York
Sacred Space, 450 Broadway Gallery, Soho, New York
1995
Soul in C Minor, 450 Broadway Gallery, Soho, New York
1993
Spazi Fine Arts, Housatonic, Massachiusetts
New Directions, Pleiades Gallery, Soho, New York

AWARDS
2007 
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Computer Arts
2002
Creative Capital grant
Nominated for Rockefeller Fellowship
2001
Greenwall Foundation grant for Point-to-Point
Nominated for Rockefeller Fellowship
Nominated for a Webby Award in the Arts category
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Computer Arts
2000
Fraunhofer Society prize for Point-to-Point
1999
The Shredder awarded honorable mention by Ars Electronica 99
1998
Digital Landfill receives first prize in ASCII Digital 99 festival

COMMISSIONS
2004 
Centre Pompidou purchases FEED:pompidou net artwork
Hotel commissions interactive work for installation in their lobby
Whitney Museum of American Art commissions “Four” for ArtPort website
2002
Markle Feed customized version of “Feed”, commissioned by the Markle Foundation, New York
Artist in Residence at the Sackler Center of the Guggenheim Museum, New York
2001
net.flag – net art project, commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum for acquisition into their permanent collection
USA 1.1 – net art project, ommissioned by Altoids.com
Point-to-Point – net art installatio, commissioned by Whitney Museum of American Art
2000
Feed – net art project, commissioned by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1999
Pulse – net art project, commissioned by Altoids.com

PORN TO PIZZA – Domestic Clichés, DAM GALLERY Berlin, 5 September – 24 October 2015
E-VOLVE, DAM GALLERY Cologne, 24 April – 24 June 2010
VENUS 2.0, DAM GALLERY Berlin, 5 December 2009 – 27 January 2010
MARK NAPIER & JOHN F. SIMON, DAM GALLERY Berlin, 28 September – 10 November 2007