Mark Gleason was born in 1962 in Greenwich, Connecticut, and has been creating since childhood. He studied art at Syracuse University, and he enjoys the private practice of painting, as well as the public process of being an educator.

Gleason’s psychically charged mythical realism focuses on figures and liminal spaces in our increasingly fragile environment. His animals and individuals explore connections and emphasize emotional meaning through pose, composition, and lighting. Elements of fire, water, earth, and sky feature prominently in his work, and are visually echoed by his color palette.

Drawing on approaches and references from literature, music, philosophy, ecology, and the figurative old masters, Gleason’s oil paintings are a convergence of visceral, austere, mischievous, and absurd.

“I paint from my inside outward, and the painting surface is corporeal. Though I work quite deliberately, consciously employing both traditional and innovative techniques, my unconscious associations direct my images, narratives, and themes,” Gleason says. “Somewhere between inception and completion, I ask the painting to convey a narrative and to astonish, disturb, seduce, and convince.”

Mark lives with his wife and teaches art in the San Francisco Bay area.