"You're Still The One (A Love Story)" by Mark Witzling. 24" x 42", Oil, graphite, and cold wax on canvas, reproduction.

"This painting is joyful and complex, and I feel good whenever I look at it. Some paintings just do that for me. I chose this title because I was thinking of Jan and our 40+ years of marriage. I still feel deep joy whenever I am with her." - Mark Witzling

About the Artist
"Visual art is a form of deep human expression and, like music and dance, allows communicating beyond the written and spoken word. Painting abstractly in oils is my method for this expression. While the process is often solitary and meditative I find it to be energizing and inspiring.

Perhaps because of my background in strategy, marketing, and branding, complex ideas intrigue me, with nuanced layers teasing out the intricacies of a concept. I apply this to my painting approach by building up layers and excavating back into these visual stacks, repeating this push-pull process to evoke a sense of depth and understanding in the work. I enjoy the creative freedom of nonrepresentational art, although physical surroundings of landscape and geography frequently influence my approach and I am glad to allow this to occur spontaneously. My role as Executive Director of Craft Alliance (2018-2023) exposed me to a wide variety of forms of creative expression and now as a full-time artist I continue to allow these forms to stimulate and influence my own creative expression.

My specific process uses cold wax medium blended with my oil paints to create the layered effects I seek to express. I often start with an underlying layer of graphite mark-making to bring interesting forms to the artwork and to suggest the compositional approach. My painting process rarely uses traditional brushes, instead working responsively with a variety of tools such as pastry scrapers, brayers, brooms, sticks, and even old credit cards to activate the surface.

I have studied, painted, and taught workshops in studios across the country, from Santa Fe and Albuquerque to Montana, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, and my art is included in private and corporate collections across the US as well Europe and India. I was honored to receive a Diderot Grant and a Regional Arts Commission Grant to participate in an artist residency at Chateau Orquevaux (France), and my art appears in the books Cold Wax Medium – Techniques, Concepts, Conversation (Crowell & McLaughlin) and to Artfolio 2021, A Curated Collection of the World’s Most Exciting Artists."

Silent auction winners must pick up their item at the "Canvas of Hope” event or arrange for pick up at a mutually scheduled date/time in advance with Hope Creates. Please contact Jeni Luhrs to schedule your pickup: 
· 314-282-5389 or 

· jeni.fehr@hopecreates.org 

 

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