MARK FEREM'S BIO:



Mark Ferem’s on-going study of latrinalia is now a book consisting of images from his collection. The book Bathroom Graffiti is being published by Mark Batty Publishing and is now available at book stores world wide. Ferem says, “As a photo-essay Bathroom Graffiti will allow the initiate to gain a better understanding of bathroom graffiti’s folkloric value. Bathroom graffiti is not so much a chicken soup for the soul as it is a seafood gumbo for the mind.”

Born in Montebello, California and raised in a single parent home in South Central Los Angeles. Mark graduated from in Los Angeles Trade Tech in 1982 majoring in Communication Arts and Technical Illustration. He worked at an ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach in the darkroom during the age of stat camera’s and paste up. In April 1992, Mark left California for Texas to work as an Art Director at an advertising agency in Houston. Later receiving a National Addy Award for an ad campaign for The Houston Chronicle 1993. But it was during this time while living in Houston Mark made his first trip to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico; home of Ancient Mayan and Mark has traveled back to various sites of the ruins of the ancient Maya. These glyphs and images etched in stone were also etched into Ferem’s consciousness. Having previously been to Stonehenge and the Vatican, Mark had developed passion for human culture. It’s through these experience’s Mark has come to appreciate the ritual and culture of the human condition. It was during this time Mark started his bathroom graffiti project called “It’s all in the Head” a study, a photo-essay documenting the words and images of latrinalia – “this umbilical cord that connects us who we are, what we love, believe and fear”. Since returning to Los Angeles in 1995, Ferem has freelanced in order to fund his bathroom graffiti project. His photojournalism has been featured in Beautiful Decay, Adbusters, Vapors, The Los Angeles Journal and elsewhere. A self-taught artist and photographer at present Mark is currently living and working in Los Angeles, as he pursues a career in photography/photo-journalism/photo assistant, he’s willing to travel on assignment, domestic and international. See some samples of his photography in his portfolio.