Rise Up Festival Announces Best of Show Artist Mark Swain
Mark Swain, St. Louis multi-medium artist was voted Best of Show for the 2014 Rise Up Festival – Celebrating Revitalization held in Crown Square on August 21st, 2014. Mark is an active artist in St. Louis who participates in arts shows, street festivals, and special events as a live artist and/or showing artist. We will be sharing Mark’s up and coming events as information is available.
Mark Swain/ Artist Biography
At age eight, Mark Swain would accompany his father to his job as groundskeeper for Forest Park, and sit for hours by the waterfall drawing. Today, he continues to interpret the world around him through various artistic media – music, floral design, jewelry making, painting, drawing, photography and sculpture – turning often to the human form for artistic inspiration. Indeed, the human form has been a life’s passion for Mark, who is a licensed cosmetologist, esthetician, national board certified massage therapist, and holistic health and massage therapy instructor. Excited by photographers such as Skrebneski and Edward Curtis, and artists such as Michelangelo, Bernini, Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dali, Botticelli, and Rodin, Mark also knew that the emotion and experience of past generations are inherent in the
seemingly unconscious entwining of cellular being, and readily express themselves through the artist’s hand when the artist has the sensitivity to touch that mystery within. Of Native American descent, Mark walks “the Red Road,” observing Native traditions and sacred ways. His intense love of the natural world, his fluency with mystical experiences, and his awareness that “everything is alive” lend depth, intensity, and anima to his pieces. Mark’s Native ancestry informs his artistic vision and in particular, his brilliant works in leather and on canvas. The spirits of his Native elders breathe their inspiration and regard for the sacred earth into him, and work through him to shape each unique and powerful piece. You can feel their presence as their stories come to life through his craft.
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*Currently Mark has work at Dogtown Gallery and Frame.
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