Mark Kleine (he/she/they) celebrates the multifaceted nature of identity. Their practice speaks to lived experiences as a mestizo – a person of ‘mixed’ Filipino descent. This is expressed in performance, photography, and video narratives that depict Kleine in a variety of guises. Kleine’s identity as a mestizo drives their interest in contexts that are liminal, fluid, or ‘in-between’. The stories that Kleine tells express fluidity – characters respond to contexts that can question our static perceptions of them. This involves work that speaks to Kleine’s ‘mixed’ heritage, LGBTQ+ themes, and other experiences that encourage new stories while enriching traditional narratives. Kleine appreciates the importance of evolving perspectives about who we are and our capacity to break away from limiting frameworks.

Mark Kleine was born in Sunnybank, Queensland in 1992. Kleine's mother is an Ilocana from Mindanao in the Philippines while his father is from Leipzig in Germany. In 2013, Kleine graduated with a degree in Fine Arts at the Queensland University of Technology and has since shown in exhibitions locally and overseas. This has included the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in South Korea, Performance Space in Sydney, and Shiro Oni Studio in Japan. In 2022, Kleine received a grant from Queensland’s Regional Arts Development Fund to develop their solo exhibition Domina (2022). Kleine lives in Logan City, Queensland and works as a lawyer in Magandjin (Brisbane).