Mark Greenwalt Mark Greenwalt is from Galveston, a small island just off the Texas coast near Houston. His family has been living there for generations, despite the sometimes stormy weather. Mark’s grandmother was one of only two people out of a household of twenty that survived the hurricane that wiped out Galveston in 1900. Mark lives and paints in a suburban house not too far from the ocean. The influence of his art is evident everywhere in his home: his artwork hangs on the walls; he’s torn up the flooring in the dining room and turned the space into his studio; and his kitchen table is, quite literally, a work of art—it features a transfer of a photograph of his daughter in the middle and a border of paintings surrounding it. Some people might find it difficult or distracting to work at home, but the arrangement actually suits Mark’s approach to creating art, which is quite organic. In fact, he likens painting to gardening, in that he grows new images and ideas out of “composted” preexisting ones. As a result, the process of creating a painting or drawing necessarily involves multiple iterations of creation and destruction as he strives to produce something that he has never seen before. Because of this organic philosophy, he tries not to become too invested in, or too attached to, anything that he is working on. He draws over work that he’s already done; he scrapes away dried paint to reveal layers of work from previous sessions in his studio; and he is always experimenting with shapes and colors. He works on several paintings and drawings at the same time, simply moving from one piece of art to the next whenever he is in danger of getting mired in one work so he can see—and create—something new and different. And when he needs to stop working, period, he goes and empties the dishwasher, walks the dog, watches his kids’ soccer games, or any number of other typical household activities.
 This “gardening” approach helps his artwork stay fresh and challenging to him, so that he can create new images independently from what he has already laid down on his easel with pencil, paint, and pen. Many of his paintings, like the one on his Art out of the Frame t-shirt, also feature shapes and bodies floating in space, without any background. This is because he wants himself and his audience to take the images for what they are, unanchored by any context that might skew perception of the images themselves.
As you might guess, considering Mark’s modus operandi, his studio has quite a few paintings on the walls and on stands, many of which remain works in progress until they begin to speak to him and develop a character of their own. He also keeps numerous sketchbooks that he uses not only at home, to develop ideas, but during travel and
trips to museums, zoos, and other places that provide inspiration and interesting things to see. It’s a matter of controlled chaos, out of which new ideas are meant to germinate.
To see more of Mark Greenwalt's work visit his gallery:
www.HooksEpsteinGalleries.com
2631 Colquitt
Houston, TX 77098 
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