I’m an Okie by birth and a New Yorker by choice. Before arriving to Brooklyn over 20 years ago, I spent my art school years in New Mexico earning a BFA degree from the College of Santa Fe. Despite a love of both sculpture and painting, it was fine art photography and art handling that actually allowed me to relocate to New York to pursue a career in the fine arts. Brooklyn has been a constant inspiration to me, but after 20 years in the city, I’m excited to have bought a barn in the Catskills to renovate in my off time.

Thanks for joining us Mark, tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences as an artist?

My inspiration at the moment would have to be American independent films of the 1970s (Five Easy Pieces, The Long Goodbye, Nashville and Scarecrow to name a few.) It’s the honesty and rawness of the human condition that interests me most and I look to instill this feeling in my own work. I have always been fascinated with the strangeness of our earliest memories, so work from this era is like some half-remembered world from childhood that I am trying to study and understand.

Share with us, a little about your creative process.

My artistic process is one of appropriation and sampling imagery from mid 20th century Americana vacation scenes. I recontextualize these borrowed memories to reflect to my own family history, but at the same time allow others to internalize the open narrative for themselves. The paintings are on the formal side, but there is a layering of applied color and blurring of detail that results from generations of artifacts buried in a compressed digital file.

How did this year affect your creativity?

I think studio life is already in tune with the pandemic in many ways. Working in solitude is familiar to me. I think most artists want to have those extended times to work without interruption, so emotionally it wasn’t difficult to manage. Culturally, it really accelerated our time spent inhabiting virtual spaces. It seems people are taking advantage of flexible work hours and remote places to live, but I am concerned we will lose some of the benefits of being present and engaging with the physical world as this continues.

Icons in your opinion?

I’d have to go with director/writer Paul Thomas Anderson. He has made some of the most iconic films of the past 25 years- hands down. His ability to flesh out these compelling, dysfunctional characters in a variety of time periods (and in such detail) is impressive. Not many artists have found his balance of commercial and critical success.

What does wellbeing mean to you?

Wellbeing is being grateful each day that I can get up to work, play, make art and enjoy time with my friends. Getting outdoors is like a spiritual routine for me and keeps me sane after the daily hustle of the city.

Anything else you’d like to share?

My solo exhibition ‘Souvenir’ is currently on view at the Owen James Gallery, NYC and runs through October 23rd.

• .www.owenjamesgallery.com

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• Portrait of the artist by Maxim Ryazansky