A-2011-ODDITY, Shoreline

A-2011-ODDITY is a non-commissioned series inspired by David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Mark shows what could have happened to the illustrious Major Tom after the radio contact was lost. An astronaut, cut-off from family and ground-control. Traveling forever alone, a modern pioneer, discovering new worlds. In Mark’s non-commissioned work a theme like Loneliness is ever present.

Mark Engelen was born in 1975 as Mark Janssen and he graduated at the Academy of fine arts St. Joost in 1999. After working in several fields of photographic expertise he now has found his muse and specializes in largely scaled, staged, theatrical photography. In his work themes like solitude and demise can be found. His clientele consists of multinationals, magazines, music artists, commercial agency’s and cultural institutions. Besides assigned projects, giving life to non-commissioned series is a big part of his activities in which he likes to work with set-design in order to visualize his vision in the best way. This craftsmanship is visually present in his images. His non-commissioned work is on permanent display at his Dutch gallery, gets a lot of media attention and has been added to several important collections. Recently he started working under his mothers maiden name. A symbolic gesture.