An Explorative Eye: Art by Mark M. Garrett
Solitude (diptych), ink wash on canvas
Mark M. Garrett is a San Francisco-based artist who employs abstraction and an explorative eye across various media. The artist often combines collage and painted media, such as in his map paintings where cut-out sections are filled in with paint. This paint-and-papercut combination informs both the media and the aesthetics of much of Mark’s portfolio.
Browsing through Mark’s portfolio, I find that branches tend to be a common theme running through many of the artist’s pieces. Whether it’s long strips of paper cut out from maps, or lines of paint and pigment intersecting like lightning bolts across a substrate, the artist seems to have an affinity for this style of abstract line art. Even in Mark’s assemblages, intersecting and crossing lines can be seen.
I really like the way the artist’s love for maps and topology comes into play in the series Planet Skins, Flight Dreams, and Topographical Reliquaries. These works use discarded paper and other materials to build up topographies of their own, in self-contained masses of “land”.
EmpathyBlues, mixed media, found frame, paper cut collage, mirror, ink