Artist Statement

The physical properties of shifting color and its variations are endless, providing a challenge that establishes my primary motivation in the act of painting. The more formal aspects such as the contrast of a defined line, geometric shape, or manipulating value is played off against the gestural strokes that set up an inner dialogue as the work develops. In effect, each work becomes a separate journey.

Like a jazz musician who improvises, much is done under the guise of spontaneity, lending emotional impact – yet structure is maintained to keep the work compositionally balanced. The resulting finished image mixes subtlety, undercurrent, accident, and depth, all developed and refined by the consuming process of daily painting.

There is not one constant approach in making the art, since to be fully involved in the moment means, at least in part, engaging the subconscious – which by definition only happens when you’re not aware of it. Getting into the ”zone” so-to speak. To me, every session is an exploration of possibilities that inspires the next round of painting − changing, adding or even subtracting from what’s on the canvas working through to its completion.

I’ve purposefully stayed away from developing a “signature style” a la Rothko, or Pollock, and instead preferred to let each painting find its own way, yet taken as a whole, a viewer can make definite connections.

– MARK LEYSEN