self portrait, heavy lay the crown. c.2022
I paint nature deconstructed, blurring the boundary between the real and the abstract.
Artist Bio
Mark O’Neil, born in 1961, is currently living and working in Newport, New Hampshire. After 30 years in the tech industry, he’s rediscovered his passion for art — he received his BA in Printmaking and Art History from Purdue University in 1993. In 2023, he retired, set up his equipment, and learned the art of silkscreen printing. Mark has a diverse background, including Art History, Lithography, and Computer Graphics which influences his art. He creates mesmerizing and thought-provoking serigraph paintings by skillfully blending technology, pre-press, hand printing techniques, and unique halftone and separation methods. His non-representational artwork, inspired by natural patterns, features a painterly surface achieved through careful selection and composition of his deconstructed photographic imagery and custom-mixed inks of various transparency. Mark’s unique process gives his paintings a dynamic energy, reminiscent of action and field painting, providing a tactical juxtaposition to the static nature of serigraph stencils.
Artist Statement
The spiritual relationship between non-objective art and nature is central to my practice. By abstracting natural forms into less representational patterns and forms, I aim to evoke nature’s interconnectedness and mystery. My non-objective art allows for a direct, personal response transcending specific imagery, offering a space where viewers can experience wonder, reflection, and a quiet reverence for the unseen rhythms of life.
I walk my dog daily along the same trail we’ve shared for over ten years. I take photos of the trees, their bark, moss, pine needles, the river, the ground, asphalt, and nature’s seasonal life and decay.
I use these photographs to create my vision of the ever-shifting landscape. I curate and distill my selections to a binary black and white essence, often several times from a single image. These “essence” images are printed on large format transparency film and burned onto photo-emulsion coated screens. I have a growing library of 33 screens which I have been combining and reusing for the past year. By combining selections from these screens, most from a few dozen photos, I create my vision—the one I see when I close my eyes and listen to the murmur of the river and rustle of the trees.