Mark blends traditional and contemporary approaches to painting in his landscapes - fruit of twenty-five years of evolution as a professional artist, that represents his unconventional background and adventurous life story.

 

Born in Germany, the son of an art historian, he received a classical humanistic education, studying icon painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts in the Slovak Republic. Mark later moved to the US, where he continued to study painting and received an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. During his years of travel throughout Mexico, Belize and Guatemala the meticulous layers of oil paints possible in the studio were replaced by quick washes of more portable watercolors. This directness later translated back into oil paintings executed ‘a la prima’, better suited for capturing the fleeting effects of light and painting on location on beaches, jungles, archeological sites and most recently the Appalachian Mountains. This approach proved successful in Catalunya where he spent two years touring the countryside on the plain air speed painting circuit before returning to Asheville.