Mark Rooker is a Metalsmith who works in a variety of media to create dynamic, culturally critical, and adornment-oriented art through such techniques as fabrication, laser and micro-arc welding, die-forming, anodizing, carving, electroforming, and enameling; as well as continuing to produce sculptural objects, installations, tableware, and mixed-media artist's books.

Born in 1969 in Illinois, Rooker studied to be a graphic designer, and branched out into 3-D forms and materials after a series of creative leaps, making objects that translated graphic design genres and ideas into real spaces. Currently, he is Professor of Art at James Madison University, where he is the director of the Metals program.

Rooker has been in many local, national and international exhibitions, and is in the Permanent Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and The Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery of American crafts.

•M.F.A. - Metals, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

•M.F.A. - Graphic Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

•B.F.A. - Graphic Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign