Mark Dion has received numerous awards, including the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001) The Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum's  Lucida Art Award (2008) and was a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient in 2019.  He has had major exhibitions at the Miami Art Museum (2006); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004); Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2003);  Tate Gallery, London (1999), and the British Museum of Natural History in London (2007) .

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Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our
understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. The job of the artist, he says, is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention. Appropriating archaeological, field ecology and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between ‘objective’ (‘rational’) scientific methods and ‘subjective’ (‘irrational’) influences.

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These prints exemplify Mark's graphic work which examines scientific illustrations and how they catalog and convey information to the viewer. Upon first glance they are straightforward scientific illustrations but upon closer viewing they offer absurd elucidations and cheeky commentary on contemporary culture.