January 8th, 2016

This week, we welcome in the paintings of Mark Horst to the Gallery MAR family. I’ve been watching his work develop, and this fall reached out to make the connection with our Park City gallery.

Horst’s story is an interesting one; although he began with his adult life devoted to theology, he eventually made his way back to fine art — and painting, in particular. He studied painting at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at the New York Studio School, and now lives and works in New Mexico.

In the new group of work that is arriving at the gallery, we will see mothers and fathers with children in sweet and intimate moments as well as playful glimpses of children on the street. Please contact the gallery for more information on the paintings, and view them all here: https://blog.gallerymar.com/artists/mark-horst/

I love this quote by Martin Shaw, an author/painter/teacher who knows Horst well:

Mark Horst carries a quiver full of painterly gifts. His startling work reveals wild pinpricks of the eternal, often in the subtlest of images. Make no mistake, the paintings sometimes hold our feet to the flame-a door between a collectively understood image and some new paint-spirit that comes hurtling through. Not always a comfortable experience.

That door is also a gateway between the tacit and the explicit-his sheer feel and technique is obvious, but there are other energies at work here too, some ancient condition of the soul. Horst is one of the few new painters to hold the paradox of tradition and innovation within him- there is brilliance here.