Mark Malmgren

Works for sale by Mark Malmgren 

The following statements were made by the artist, Mark Malmgren,  outlining his unique approach to creativity. 

 Just as "sighted" people have no real concept of the richness of sound that blind people experience, people with no color deficiencies have no true concept of the purity of the primary colors that color blind people perceive. The ONLY objective of my paintings is to be able to bring the primary colors alive. My black trees exist only as a vehicle to display the red leaves of dogwoods in fall.

To my knowledge, there has never been a specific genre defined as Color Blind Art. Being color blind, I had to make a choice when I started painting. Did I want to try and "correct" this deficiency by attempting to paint like non color blind people? Or did I want to just paint the world as a saw it and imagined it. As you can tell, I chose the later. The freedom to use my own colors was liberating. Now it seems very natural. When I paint a blue spruce, it is blue. What else would it be? But I can just as easily paint a yellow or a red tree. I am certain that when color blind people see my paintings, they have an innate recognition of the intent. I am curious what non color blind people think. Perhaps they think I just mixed up the colors. Or perhaps they might just think that colors are relative and can be changed at will. In any event, Color Blind Art as a genre should exist, both for color blind painters and viewers, and also for those people with no color "deficiencies" to enjoy and ponder. 

BEYOND PLEINAIRISM

Everyone who loves the Impressionists has a vision of Monet standing by his easel on a windswept beach in Normandy, braving the elements to obtain the perfect light for his painting.

Along with a current revival of interest in the Impressionists, there is a similar fascination with pleinairism. Painting “on site” has become all the rage and many painters claim, like Monet, that all of their work is done outside, on site. Interestingly, when challenged late in his career that some of his work might have been done in his studio from photographs, Monet reacted angrily by saying that how he painted was no one’s business. This after working hard for years to create an image of himself as a pleinairist.

In reality, the debate is silly and of no real consequence. Monet was a great artist and he used a combination of painting on site, his artistic memory, and perhaps some help from photographs. His paintings are, none the less, miraculous.

Each artist must listen to his/her inner voices and pursue those methods that work best for him/her. Attempting to copy another artist’s style or methods can stifle creativity and produce vapid results.

I quickly learned that traditional pleinairism did not work well for me. The practical reality is that I paint from memory. Not the photographic memory of a traditional realist, but the “filtered” memory of a primitive.

I spend a month every year at Lake George in Upstate New York. For that month I simply open up all of my senses to the beauty of the surroundings. I do not paint. I rarely think. And I certainly don’t allow the accumulated madness of modern life to interfere with this sensory infusion.

At the end of the month, I return to my normal life. As the weeks and months go by, the stored sensory load slowly “leaks” out. As the visions become stronger, they are simply filtered through my consciousness and they find their way onto canvas. The process is easy, automatic, and predictable. After I finish a painting, I set it aside for a while to dry and to “come together”. I revisit it weeks or months later, and only then do I allow myself to see if the painting has the ability to transport my consciousness back to that place of beauty. If it does, I have succeeded.



Works for sale by Mark Malmgren