Solo Group Exhibition

Mark Clark January 31 - Feb. 29, 2008

Mark Clark’s, “Solo Group Exhibition” is a tongue in cheek title for a true renaissance man’s retrospective as Clark has explored many styles of art through this career. Clarks’s work includes the styles of the West Coast psychedelic, pop art, pointillism, photorealism, portraiture, expressionism, illusionism, classicism, naturalism, and even romanticism. The works in this exhibit span over a period of 40 years.

Clark’s Curriculum Vitae reads as an adventure explorer’s novel as he developed his extreme lifestyle in an age of revolution and social change. His position as an executive committee board member for the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen chapter) as treasurer speaks volumes of his political affiliations during the 1960’s—a tumultuous time of change.

In the midst of a Cultural Revolution on the West coast during his early years, Clark’s artwork and aesthetic was greatly affected. Today Clark is no longer associated with his underground overtures and is a valuable respected member of the community. Clark has transmorphed through many art styles, methodologies and theories. He is a “self-taught” artist and this resolve is what makes him a sought after drawing instructor at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, where he teaches drawing to up and coming established artists. When you succeed at teaching yourself to draw, you develop resilient strategies that help you respond to students with nurtured sensitivity and empathy. This broad naïve transdisciplinary approach to life is Clark’s trademark.

A few years ago Clark purchased and old dilapidated 150-year-old building in downtown Brownsville and remodeled it into Galeria 409, one of the premier contemporary art galleries in the Rio Grande Valley. As Director and Curator of Galeria 409, Clark shows some of the most experimental and cutting edge artists in the Valley and exclusively exhibits South Texas and northern Mexico (border area) artists.

You cannot have an in-depth conversation with Mr. Clark and not realize his lifestyle is one of refined research and development of concerns for work, gallery and art community. He is a single sustainable campaign for the arts. Clark’s knowledge of Rio Grande Valley cultural history, religion, spirituality, and myths is visually evident in his most recent work dealing with historical wars, religious battles, and Calaveras’.

Mark Clark is retired from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC after 22 years of service with the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the National Air and Space Museum. Additionally, he worked at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, The New Orleans Museum and is now on the board of directors of the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, where he also does pro bono exhibition installation design.

Clark has exhibited his paintings professionally since 1978, producing a dozen one-person exhibitions and participating in over one hundred group shows in Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Pitsburgh, Richmond, Houston, Brownsville and Matamoros.