14 Facts About Mark Vallen

Mark Vallen was born on 1953 and is an American activist with Chicano and other issues, curator, figurative realist painter, and blogger, who runs the Art for a Change web site; he founded The Black Moon web site for Japanese culture.

Mark Vallen was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.

Mark Vallen studied art at the Otis Parsons Art Institute and was influenced by the African American artist, Charles White, but considers himself largely self-taught, with influences from Goya, Daumier, German Expressionists and Mexican Muralists.

Mark Vallen worked on Slash, and produced art work based on the early punk scene.

Mark Vallen participated in Penelope Spheeris' punk rock documentary The Decline of Western Civilization.

Mark Vallen advocated for the neglected Central American refugee community, and was the first person to distribute on the streets of Los Angeles political posters in support of that community.

Mark Vallen's art was in the traveling show at UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, the Oakland Museum of California, the Merced Multicultural Arts Center, the Crocker Art Museum, the Jersey City Museum, and Galeria de la Raza; his art was in the opening show at the Kantor Gallery, and in the exhibition At Work: The Art of California Labor at Pico House gallery; a solo retrospective, More Than A Witness was at the A Shenere Velt Gallery, Los Angeles.

Mark Vallen was included in the show Fundamental in Manchester in 2007.

Still some years before Robbie Conal gained fame for his scathing caricatures of Reagan, Mark Vallen's piece appealed not only to the aesthetics but the pragmatics of activism in Los Angeles.

Mark Vallen modeled his figure in part on Wonder Woman, and with its obvious nod to Lichtenstein's pop art, his piece was both aesthetically familiar and initially non-threatening to the viewer.

Mark Vallen contributes art to the web site Xispas, which covers Chicano culture and is edited by the writer, Luis J Rodriguez.

Mark Vallen designed the cover for Rodriguez's poetry book, My Nature Is Hunger, published in 2005.

Mark Vallen has taken issue with Fred Ross of Art Renewal Center, disagreeing with his Ross's unstinting admiration of the French 19th century Salon artist, William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

In 1997, Mark Vallen founded The Black Moon web site as a forum for anime and Japanese culture.