User:Cejartconsulting/Mark Bryce

Mark Bryce

Mark Adams Bryce (born 1953) is a contemporary American artist whose work derives from the formal traditions of American painting. In his realistic style, Bryce combines the beauty of physical representation with ever present attributes of social commentary, wit and satire.

Life

Mark Bryce was born in 1953 in San Francisco, California. He is the son of an American educator, renaissance writer-pianist-painter, and was surrounded by the visual and performing arts from an early age.

Bryce completed his senior year of school in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia College of Art and then attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Art for a four-year course of study. Studio figure painting, classical painting techniques as well as materials and classes filled the next four years. Bryce studied painting with Ben Kamahira, Arthur Decosta, Walter Steumpfig and Julian Levy and attended lectures by many of the leading artists of the day.

Mark Bryce currently lives and paints in California.

Work

Early in Mark Bryce’s career he experimented with the depiction of light and treatment of composition. Living in West Chester, Pennsylvania, he won a group of prizes and was offered an exhibition at the prestigious Marion Locks Gallery in Philadelphia at the age of 23. Marion Locks was thereafter his principle dealer for some 12 years. He pursued at that time, a cool crisp-somewhat style of painting, rebelling against the open brushwork traditions of the Academy. Urban scenes imbued with a narrative social perspective, are among his earliest subject matter. The years from the early eighties forward saw Bryce’s work move into a softer more ethereal realm. He found his work leaning to a spare, mystically iconic and elegant aesthetic. At this time, he also began to investigate and represent through the medium of painting the dichotomous and simultaneous perceptions of reality that exist in and around our world stage. His study of meditation and the pursuit of metaphysical dynamics were the catalyst to this direction.

From the early to mid eighties the work became softer…less cool. The technique was open and less constrained yet still detailed, generally painted in a progressively layered technique grounded in Netherlandish painting of the 17th century. Yet ever the Academy graduate he is clearly still influenced by the 19th century American tradition. In the early eighties, he came into more intimate contact with the Chadds Ford group of painters, all of whom were centered around Andrew Wyeth and family. While delighted to enjoy the variety of famous and infamous characters that came through this artistic area, he was determined to pursue his own visual vocabulary. An independent spirit, he soon returned to the misty fog of San Francisco and soft blond light near the ocean he so loved. At this time he showed both in California and New York with various galleries such as Allan Stone as well as having solo shows at James Corcoran in Los Angles and in the late nineties had a solo exhibition at Bradford Gallery in San Francisco with a exhibition catalog including a forward by renowned American art dealer Richard York who stated:

“His work can poke fun at aspects of American culture asking us to step back and laugh at ourselves while also asking us to consider darker issues and how they have affected our lives. His work beckons us to consider how as a part of a larger world culture we can learn and grow to higher goals.

This exhibition was followed in 2001 with a solo show in the Chelsea area of New York City at the J. Cacciola Galleries. Among the paintings in the exhibition was a work entitled “Waiting for the Waves of Mara”. This painting features the classic American Icon Popeye standing on a surfboard that is oddly perched on top of a sand dune. At the bottom of the sand dune sits a meditating Buddha with the ominous presence of shark not far away. This work describes the Buddhist tale of the temptation of Buddha by Mara. Popeye, representing the invincible nature of American culture, faces this same issue and stands ready to ride above or drown beneath the waves of Mara. Bryce believes in the concept of investigating ideas and philosophy. He uses his paintings to explore feelings about the shifting values of an increasingly homogenized global culture and develops narrative works that imply specific commentaries imbued with psychological and spiritual overtones.

His most recent work is founded from this same narrative, conceptual stance using elements of art history. Bryce’s works deal with the challenges of contemporary life within the context of the art making process. His subject matter is wide ranging and profound. These paintings imply specific meanings yet he prefers not to offer interpretations instead leaving it up to the viewer to grapple with the conceptual implications.

His work can be found in private collections and public collections throughout the United States.