Mark Whitmarsh was born in Denver Colorado. He has been painting for more than three decades. Mark's paintings are in many public and private collections. Raised in Lakewood Colorado, near the foothills of the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Back packing and ski racing were his favorite outdoor activities during his early years. Art has always been very important to him from grade school through high school. Showing in galleries in his teenage years and wining an award in the national watercolor society exhibit at age 18. Educated at the university of Wyoming, and the Rocky Mountain school of art and design. During this five-year period he had the opportunity to study with Mark Dickson, the great abstract landscape painter from Denver Colorado. This was a pivotal period for the artist, and during this period he gravitated towards a more reductionist attitude toward painting the landscape. Strongly influenced by the Abstract Expressionism movement throughout the 90's and into the turn of the century, Mark developed a freely expressive mode of creativity. Mark has shown throughout the southwest, including New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma. During this time he has had 22 (one man show's) at southwest gallery in Texas. Also during this period, he was active in many group shows throughout the US, including, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. Paintings are included in many public and private collections. Permanent collections: Fountain place downtown Dallas, and Lincoln plaza in north Dallas. Mark recognized early on that Ce'zanne's paintings were both depictions of his little sensations of still life, portraiture, or landscape, and synthetic compositions prophetic of cubism and abstraction as these styles were being developed during the 20th century. The arrangement of colors, and the physicality of paint and texture is as real an art form as the subject matter depicted. "There is a simplification going on, an elimination of detail and color to turn the whole work into a harmony of color and light" The paintings sometimes develop very quickly, and very realistic, then they can be Broken down to a more universal language of color and texture. This whole process can be over long periods of time. Routine and hard work play a major role in the development of this freely expressed creative process. Working less more often helps with the burnout problem most artist face. Inspiration comes freely from this process and creates a certain mode of excitement throughout the work. Breaking old habits is paramount to the journey. Experimentation is encouraged, and a little alchemy along the way builds up paint and texture relationships unknown until it happens. Intelligence is reduced to a more playful childlike attitude, where anything is possible. Long periods of solitude, and observation play a key role as color relationships must be digested and either rejected or kept. The revisions also add character to the overall experience, leaving earlier strata that remain to add a rich visual language to each work. ."My work can be seen as a distillation of my experience with that landscape or place, in combination with my ongoing exploration of the sensuous and eccentric qualities of the natural application of paint, sand, and sometimes collages. This initiates a free expression of a larger notion of nature, and keeps the genuine quality of each work modern" "As I build layers of color and texture, a personal visual language develops on the surface, working with an intuitive attitude. By adding and subtracting layers this personal Genesis is revealed creating a certain mood that I've seen or felt " Mark Whitmarsh