Mark Gleason was born in 1962 in Greenwich, CT, and has been
creating visual art since childhood. In 1984 he moved to New York to obtain a
Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in studio arts from Syracuse University. Gleason
later moved back to Connecticut where he received a Master of Science in art
education from the University of Bridgeport. Gleason enjoys the private act of
painting, as well as the public process of being an educator.

Gleason’s psychically charged mythical realism focuses on
figures and liminal spaces in our increasingly fragile environment. His animals
and individuals explore connections and emphasize emotional meaning through
pose, composition, and lighting. Elements of fire, water, earth, and sky
feature prominently in his work, and he also relates these to his color
palette.

Drawing on approaches and references from literature, music,
philosophy, ecology, and the figurative old masters, Gleason’s oil paintings
are at once visceral, austere, mischievous, and absurd.

“I paint from my inside outward, and the painting surface
is corporeal. Though I work quite deliberately, consciously employing both
traditional and innovative techniques, my unconscious associations direct my
images, narratives, and themes. Somewhere between inception and completion
I ask the painting to convey a narrative and to astonish, disturb, seduce and
convince.”