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Santa Fe, NM
Mark White Fine Art, July 2-16

Mark White, Peaceful Passage III, oil, 48 x 72.

This story was featured in the July 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art July 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

SANTA FE ARTIST and gallery owner Mark White has always created his works with an approach that embraces serendipity, uncertainty, and experimentation. “I love learning and am always exploring and pushing my artistic boundaries, searching for the path less traveled,” he says.

Best known for his meditative and mesmerizing kinetic sculptures, White is also an innovative painter whose subjects, styles, and mediums are as diverse and experimental as his three-dimensional works. After taking a decade-long break from oil painting, White returned to this medium in recent years with a fresh outlook. “As the world is continually evolving, I feel my own continual growth is an important pursuit,” he says. This month, White displays the latest evolution of his work at his Canyon Road gallery in a solo show aptly titled New Growth. An artist’s reception takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday, July 5, and the show runs July 2-16.

: Mark White, Land of Golden Light II, patina/engraved aluminum, 24 x 24.

: Mark White, Moire Composition #4, stainless steel/color patina, 48 x 18 x 11.

: Mark White, Blooming Flowers #1, hand-hammered copper/stainless steel, 18 x 24.

The artist plans to include about a dozen new sculptures and about a dozen new paintings in the show. Most of the paintings are from his Reflective Series of abstract works that focus on reflective surfaces, especially water. All of the new works continue to showcase the artist’s longtime fascination with movement, both real and implied. “I’m always looking for new patterns of movement or rhythm, and I try to paint or sculpt something that gives a feeling of that movement in a new way,” he says.

Whether he is creating a large metal sculpture or facing a blank canvas, White’s artistic process allows intuition and creativity to flow freely, often resulting in beautiful “accidents” that couldn’t have been planned if he’d tried. “My creation process is serendipitous, following a certain line of experimentation without clinging to a known hypothesis. This process guides my art in many directions. Sometimes I know what I’m going for, but often I have no idea until I see it,” he says, explaining that it’s like traveling down a path and not knowing where it will lead, yet trusting that whatever is at the end will be a delightful surprise—both for the artist himself and for the viewer. —Lindsay Mitchell

contact information
505.982.2073
www.markwhitefineart.com