East Gallery
Mark Lewis
Paintings, Drawings and Collages
May 19 thru July 13, 2008
Tulsa resident and internationally-recognized artist Mark Lewis creates paintings that celebrate the distinctive Oklahoma urban landscape. In his exhibit, Mark Lewis: Paintings, Drawings and Collages, his work is derived from direct observation.
“I make paintings with my observations. I think about observation synchronized in time with painting. I want to build visually with each day’s experiences. I like the way a jazz musician builds musical ideas upon a standard tune, playing with the experience of the previous day’s work.”
Lewis incorporates figures within the context of the urban landscape experience. “The Oklahoma sky, the light, the figures in the landscape and the sense of scale excite me. I love the way the light reveals a sign or a brick facade. Despite the obvious distractions of speeding cars, the temperamental weather, the Oklahoma wind, and the occasional sidewalk critic, I enjoy working, observing, life on the street.”
Lewis currently serves as assistant art professor at the University of Tulsa and is a former visiting lecturer at Philbrook Museum of Art. He has been commissioned as one of the artists for the Bank of Oklahoma Center Arena in Tulsa.
Born in Oklahoma City in 1959, he attended High School in McAlester and studied painting at Oklahoma State University. He received a BFA in painting at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, and an MFA in painting at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 2002, Lewis was a visiting artist at the New York Studio School in New York City and then taught painting and drawing at the Montone Arts Program in Montone, Italy. He had his first and second solo New York exhibitions of paintings in 2002 and 2005 at the Tatistcheff Gallery. He had three solo exhibitions in 2006 at Living Arts of Tulsa, Georgetown University and Northwestern Missouri State University.
Sponsored
by the Oklahoma Arts Council. For more information contact Amber Sharples
at 405.521.2931 or amber.sharples@arts.ok.gov.
The East Gallery is located on the 1st floor of the State Capitol and open daily from 8:00-5:30.