About Mark Bava

“The first thing…is to get a respectable suit”
- Jason Robard, A Thousand Clowns

Mark Bava is noted for bronze sculptures, which though clearly figurative in nature, are abstracted figures rather than realist representations. The surfaces of his sculptures are chipped, hacked and left with tool marks to emphasize textures.

His human figures, even those that are sculpted with a second figure, exist independently of anyone around them. Iconic in nature, the figure is isolated and exemplified while typifying human character or social behavior.

Since childhood Bava took an interest in art, producing drawings and paintings at a very early age under the tutelage of his mother who was an Impressionistic painter He attended art school in the mid-seventies at CSUS Stanislaus which at the time was known for an art department that boasted a contemporary curriculum with many of the instructors from New York. Through the school's art and theatre program, winter semesters were spent in the city under department head and sculptor Ralf Parton. Studying in New York during that period of Abstract Expressionism had a major impact on his work today.

He sites Giacometti, Lynn Chadwick, Manuel Neri and Kenneth Armitage as influences. Mr. Bava also has considerable foundry and mold making experience. He is also well known for his productions of large multi-media events in San Francisco and Los Angeles.