“Simplicity in my works is sometimes almost overwhelming, because what I really want is a clear, distinct story that gives enough to the viewer,” says the artist Mark Pugh. He notes that he is inspired by illustrators of the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as Arthur Rackham (1867–1939). He also loves the rigor of Gustav Klimt (1962–1918) and of Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939), and considers the latter a sort of precursor to his genre of painting, with a strong definition of the subject and an imaginary scene in the background.
Mark is on the faculty of the upcoming Realism Live virtual art conference, November 13-15, 2024, with an Essential Techniques Day on November 12.
Born and raised in Amarillo, TX, to parents who met at an art session in college, Pugh now lives in Utah with his wife and children.
His mother was an art teacher who worked with ink, and his father was an engineer. “I bring my imagination and the vast use of ink from my mother’s side and my love for realism from my dad’s side,” he says. Mark has drawn throughout his life, even while he was studying for his bachelor’s degree in psychology, and he says that others appreciated his work.
His parents both played piano, something that likely led to his love of music, and he loves to play guitar and write songs: “Music influences my works strongly.” Among his dreams as a boy were to be a songwriter and to work in theater. To study theater, he went to London with a friend and, after a visit to the Tate Britain, fell in love with the paintings of J.W. Waterhouse. It was then he decided to be an artist.
Some time later, his mentor and cousin Jeffrey Hein saw Mark’s potential and suggested he pursue his dream of taking art classes to become a full-time artist and change the course of his life.
He followed that advice and completed his studies, but it wasn’t until 2016, while he was struggling to find his voice, that he came to the decision to paint only what he liked. He defined his way of painting as a combination of imagination and realism, from which his poetical style and point of view have emerged.
In the course of his career since then Mark has won numerous art competitions and shows, and his works are shown in galleries and private collections. In April of this year he had his first solo show, at the prestigious Arcadia Contemporary gallery (which now represents him) in New York.
Mark also recently received the Exceptional Merit Award at the 26th Annual International Portrait Competition by the Portrait Society of America.
Pugh is a great proponent of contemporary realism. His goal during the artistic process is to achieve a balance of strong narrative, technical mastery, and aesthetic harmony, starting from two creative elements — ideas and imagination — combined with technical skill.
This balance is also determined by a sense of whimsical mood as he tells the stories of what inspires him, observing things happening around him and interpreting them through his own ideas.
Those ideas don’t just happen; they are brought about by his own rich imagination and from the great inspiration of his favorite models, his five kids — each with his or her own personality, characteristics, and sense of curiosity about the elements like leaves, rocks, birds, or flowers that are present in all Mark’s compositions.
In Mark’s paintings, the atmosphere serves to support gestures, facial expressions, poses, and other elements of the design to amplify the power of his subjects. His figures are immersed in an imaginary background, all realized in a non finito (“unfinished”) style that is genuinely poetic.
His backgrounds are composed of simple lines — little leaves suspended in the wind, birds ready to take flight from the delicate hands of a young lady, bare trees, gorgeous roses, or melancholy sunflowers that accompany the poignant faces of his subjects.
His subjects’ expressions and gestures, combined with the imaginary elements of the background, create an explosive mixture from a simple narrative, where the guidelines for reading the work are in the artist’s mind. There is an aura of mystery, a kind of “space-time gap,” the viewer can fill by telling their own story or by simply deciding to remain suspended in the artist’s narrative limbo, contemplating the work.
Mark takes a systematic approach to composition. He habitually begins with a rendering of the figure in pencil, as well as the background in its entirety. As it is for all the great artists, drawing is a crucial part of the process; in Mark’s case, that means a full rendering of the composition on canvas.
After organizing the composition with the help of digital tools, he begins with the detailed realization of the underdrawing, for which he uses easy-to-remove water-soluble graphite as he doesn’t like to use an eraser on the canvas.
At first he makes a sort of illustration, which he then goes over with regular graphite to solidify the lines and re-mark the figures before blocking them out and doing oil washes, initially using the paints as though they were watercolor. Sometimes, for the background, he adds a glaze of color to “dirty up” the original white so it is not so stark but an off-white shade, sometimes a little warmer or a little colder, on which he then paints the shadows. Once he’s done, he goes over everything with ink. And lastly, he takes care of the figure.
Pugh’s use of color is minimalist and thoughtful, and he infuses it with harmony and elegance. He has been compared to Norman Rockwell in that regard, and shares that artist’s extraordinary gift for getting the viewer’s attention. “I think color is an important part of the design element of a painting,” he says.
A couple of fun facts about his process: He always starts by defining the background because he considers the background a crucial part of the composition. In the same way, he sees the signature as an element of the compositional process, so he usually signs the painting at the start.
Mark Pugh will be on the faculty at Realism Live, online November 13-15, 2024. During Realism Live he will demonstrate a value study of the nose. “I think the representation of the nose is helpful in explaining tonal values,” he says, adding that he considers values to be one of the most difficult issues in the process of seeing and painting. Because of this, he wants to show how to simplify the process. But above all, the artist says, ”I like to inspire people to play with their own creativity.”
