BIOGRAPHY

I’ve been an artist for over fifty years and in that time I’ve also been a designer, web developer and a promoter. In the eighties I developed and ran the Classen Art Center where I started the first annual erotic shows in Oklahoma City with openings of over 1,000 patrons. I’m no longer involved, but the erotic show I started is now the longest running annual erotic art exhibit in America. My paintings have always been based in realism but my lifelong fascination for geometry and letterforms lead to many years as a designer. That training in two dimensional graphics and color printing, shapes everything I know. So my work is a combination of traditional oil painting techniques with contemporary approaches to composition and subject. The paintings are a poetic realism coupled with the unknowable and unspoken mysteries of our own thoughts. My art has always been about expressing the otherness and mystery just underneath everyday life. A reaction to the ephemeral nature of life and mortality. All of my personal paintings are just different ways of expressing one moment, one feeling. I’m describing a place I’ve never been with a language I’ve never spoken but I’ve spent my whole life trying to get there because it's my home.

ARTIST INSIGHTS

How are your background and life experiences connected to your art?

My first memories are of geometry and letterforms. My thirty years of experience in commercial printing and design has given me a more fine grained understanding of composition and color.

Who are some of your biggest artistic influences?

My biggest and earliest artistic influences came from music. I try to capture the nonverbal feelings that music gives to me and translate those to visual forms.

How have you developed your artist career?

Every day I look a the world in terms of painting and color. Being the best I can at what is important to me is my artistic goal.

What does your artistic work intend to communicate to its audience?

My work explores the nonverbal, intuitive responses we all have to a world we think we know. I try to upset those expectations and invest the moment with uncertainty so that the viewer can decipher their own understanding out of the confusion.

Does your work comment on any current social or political issues?

No.

Do you have a particular story that stands out from your career as an artist?

I have many memories of the fun collaborations I had with fellow artists while running the Classen Art Center. Creating an Andy Warhol wake one week after his death and having three hundred people show up to enjoy the event while being famous for fifteen minutes on camera was exhilarating. The sight of hundreds of people eating beautiful hors d'oeuvres that literally had no taste was hilarious.

What is one thing you would like your audience to know about you?

They can find it in my paintings.

Which current art world trends are you following?

I find the use of interactive virtual experiences imposed over the 'real world' environment fascinating.

Why have you chosen to sell your work in the 1515 Lincoln Gallery?

I think that Susan is a very knowledgable gallery owner with good taste and integrity. Her sincerity and attention are valuable assets she brings to her clients.

ARTIST STATEMENT

All of my personal paintings are just different ways of expressing one moment, one feeling. I’m describing a place I’ve never been with a language I’ve never spoken but I’ve spent my whole life trying to get there because it's my home.

MARK GILMORE’S AVAILABLE ART

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