“Influenced by my everyday surroundings…nature, human nature, the man made, history, and the accidental…I attempt to create environments that propel the viewer into a realm where the diffusion of color, the marriage of subject matter and alternative media convene.”
Untitled Sky I, Sold
Untitled Sky II, Sold
Sky, 48 x 48, SOLD
Sky II, 48 x 48
Sky III, 48 x 48, SOLD
Wires I, 48 x 60
Wires II, 48 x 60
Wires III, 48 x 60
Horizon II, 24 x 36
Horizon III, 24 x 36, Sold
Artist's Biography
George Marks is no ordinary painter. In fact we don’t know of another artist who lives in an old gas station, paints large works on the ground using a garden hose, signs his work with an enlarged silk-screened fingerprint and applies a thin layer of ordinary road tar to seal and finish his paintings. The resulting paintings are landscapes of refined beauty, depth, luminosity and calm all packaged in an industrial strength veneer that reflects the contradiction of Marks’ powerful work.
About this contradiction, the artist Scott Finch writes: “Marks’ work is simultaneously ordered and spontaneous. Carelessness and rigid geometry mingle on the canvas. Passages of drawing in the work range from sensitively rendered figuration to loose impetuous scrawls. His palette is generally warm and harmonious, but searing thin stripes of color may awaken the calm. All of his pieces are deliberately orchestrated to fit together into a continuous installation, and yet each is also an improvisation.”
Marks’ process is innovative and complicated. The artist starts by applying gesso to hand cut wood and then paints in thin layers using a garden hose, squeegee, mop and broom, waiting between each layer for the paint to dry. To add texture and depth, he dusts some areas lightly with ground pumice stone and then applies light washes of oil before finishing the paintings with tar and a matt sealant. In his older landscapes, he used a shinier varnish until he realized that the shine removed the intimacy, reflecting the viewers away instead of drawing them in to the painting.
Marks’ luminous work is rooted in the landscape and culture of South Louisiana. As fellow Louisianan Finch continues, “His work is never void of content, no matter how abstract the few simple notations become. His work recalls the flat broad vistas of that which each of us unconsciously knows by heart. “
That this artist of many talents and proponent of other artists and art organizations is also a gentle family man with a great sense of humor, completes the picture and explains why we are so excited to represent him. For more information about George Mark's exhibition schedule and education, click here.
