Who Are Anne & Mark?

ANNE:

Anne has spent her entire life in an attempt to live in the creative hub of the universe. Starting out in Salinas, California, she has lived in Stockton, Palo Alto, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Adelaide (South Australia), Madrid, London…. Now she lives in San Jose, CA, where she dedicates her time to knocking down walls, planting trees and offering unsolicited advice.

In addition to Anne and Mark’s Art Party, she has founded Backwater Arts artists’ colony and has served on the City of San Jose’s Creative Entrepreneur’s Panel as well as SJ’s Peer Review Panel for Creative Industries Incentive Fund.

She attended Stanford University, where she received a BA (with distinction!) in English Literature and spent an inordinate amount of time in the photo lab. She has a degree from the Inchbald School of Design in London, where she received numerous awards. She also has a degree in Multimedia Design from Tracor Arts in Madrid, where she did NOT get any awards but did manage to complete the yearlong course in Spanish.

She has an extremely talented twelve-year old daughter named Charlotte who is serving as an informal creative advisor to this project, and who — though generally supportive — in many ways wishes this whole thing were over so that that her mother would chill out.

ANNE

Anne Sconberg (Salinas, United States) is an artist who works in a variety of media. By examining the ambiguity and origination via retakes and variations, Sconberg formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious process of composition that is behind the seemingly random works. The thought processes, which are supposedly private, highly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds, are frequently revealed as assemblages.   Her artworks directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, she tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical and believes in the idea of function following form in a work.   Her works never shows the complete structure. This results in the fact that the artist can easily imagine an own interpretation without being hindered by the historical reality. With a conceptual approach, she tries to increase the dynamic between audience and author by objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.   Her works feature coincidental, accidental and unexpected connections which make it possible to revise art history and, even better, to complement it. Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies.

MARK

Mark Henderson (Pembury, United Kingdom) is an artist who works in a variety of media. By focusing on techniques and materials, Henderson considers making art a craft which is executed using clear formal rules and which should always refer to social reality.   His artworks are based on formal associations which open a unique poetic vein. Multilayered images arise in which the fragility and instability of our seemingly certain reality is questioned. By choosing mainly formal solutions, he tries to develop forms that do not follow logical criteria, but are based only on subjective associations and formal parallels, which incite the viewer to make new personal associations.   His works are notable for their perfect finish and tactile nature. This is of great importance and bears witness to great craftsmanship. By emphasizing aesthetics, he seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life.   His works sometimes radiate a cold and latent violence. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. Mark Henderson currently lives and works in San Jose, CA.