Mark Hagen foregrounds the interplay of materials, process, and form in his geometric, minimalistic paintings, sculptures, and installations. He sees the process of art-making as a negotiation of opposites, in which control meets chance, the utilitarian meets the purely aesthetic, and historical references and materials merge with contemporary times. “In making my work I design systems and then use unstable materials that…allow random and irrational things to happen,” he explains. “These…systems are rational and reasonable…frameworks within which the amorphous and the impractical flourish, creating unstable perspectives.” In sculptures composed of modern, functional, metal armatures, for example, Hagen creates precariously balanced, fragile shapes, which he sometimes combines with hunks of rainbow obsidian, a material much more solid in appearance that evokes references to geological time and ancient civilizations.