Artist Mark Gleason Faces His Fear Of Bodies Of Water
Artist Mark Gleason finds painting what he fears most very productive. Classically trained at the University Of Bridgeport in Connecticut and Syracuse University in New York, Gleason’s paintings of oceans, lakes and others bodies of water are packed with motion, dark color, and implications about our own mortality.
“Water is one topic out of many that impels me to paint,” Gleason tells me. “I’ve always been comfortable about bodies of water, they’ve always been part of my environment, and I don’t feel comfortable when landlocked. I’ve always been squeamish, though, about what I can’t see. As a kid that meant crabs and eels and snapping turtles & things that take a chunk out of you, and then of course ‘Jaws’ did in an entire generation.”
Gleason, who listens to a wide range of music while painting in his studio in Palo Alto, California, finds that expressing himself on canvas helps him cope with his mixed feelings about deep bodies of water. He says “I am both fascinated by and scared of the sea. I grew up on the water, and it has always been present, however it holds so much of the unknown, and it is so enigmatic in terms of what is below the surface. There may be danger below the surface tension, and when we look at oceanic water, we’re looking at our own mortality.”
Despite his professed ambivalence about water, the ocean shows up in many of his works. He says “Painting water is a nightmare. It’s not something that I really relish doing, but so many of my painting scenarios involve water so, I dive in” One recent work is “The Deep Briny,” which dark wave electronic music artist Darwin featured as the artwork for his single “Unkind Lover,” which is based on the short story “Shark Week” by Dani Burlison.
The soundtrack to Gleason’s paintings is a mix of great music that helps him handle the anxiety of painting some of the darker subjects. (Gleason is also a member of the music group/collective Static, a darkwave electronic music project that features Darwin, Julian-Shah Tayler, and Dustin Heald.)
”I always listen to music while painting,” Gleason tells me. “In fact I would say I draw more inspiration and stimulus from the music I listen to all the time, than I do from, for example, looking at other art. Same goes for literature. These things spark me, and so surrounding myself with a ‘soundtrack’ while I work is part of the environment. There are certain things that I really resonate with: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Brian Eno, Earth, Miles Davis, Marc Ribot, Nick Cave… Honestly though, I have really diverse and disparate tastes in music, so at any given point I may be listening to ambient, delta blues, jazz, Afropop, Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, 60’s soul, contemporary classical, Tom Waits, Massive Attack, surf, rockabilly, industrial, garage, glam, old school hip hop, psychedelic guitar breakouts, Sonic Youth, Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye….it’s all over the place.”
Gleason’s paintings draw inspiration from the Romantic movement, and I asked him if his works were thematically descended from other great water paintings, including a famous shark painting, whose title and creator I couldn’t remember at the moment. “Yes!,” Gleason told me. ‘Watson and the Shark’ by Copley.
- A Metaphorical Role Gleason says that Copley’s painting falls into the romatntic category, and he pointed me to others of the genre: Winslow Homer, Gericault’s ‘Raft of the Medusa’, Caspar David Friedrich, Jamie Wyeth, Turner, Bo Bartlett, et al. He says: “These paintings/painters speak to me because their use of water is not just a setting, but the cause for the image’s activity and happenstance. In many of these cases, the phenomena of water and its denizens take a metaphorical and temperamental role in the imagery.”
Despite his prolific painting activity, water spirits still visit Gleason in the night. “I guess the recurring dreams about these things started about 15–20 years ago. They’re not nightmares so much as fascinating but cautionary elements. Painting water addresses this stuff. Then again all my paintings, regardless of content, start from where I am and who I am.”
