MARK HILLARD
Drawing and painting have been a major part of Mark’s life since an early age. He began college as a fine arts major, but ultimately graduated with a degree in psychology from Eastern Illinois University, and pursued a career in business. During his 35 years in the corporate world, he worked only intermittently with painting and drawing. Following retirement, Mark has returned full-time to art and reinvested himself in refining his skills and direction.
Mark’s primary interests are color and geometry of the human form. He most frequently works in acrylic, oil, and ink. Over the last two years, he has been exploring the juxtaposition of spontaneity versus his natural inclination to obsess on the legitimacy of a “finished” product. Transferring the almost subconscious quality of a “napkin sketch” to a finished, large painting is always a psychological challenge for Mark. Most recently, he has experimented with enlarging sketched compositions digitally, printing on canvas, and then finishing in oil or acrylic. This investigation almost always manifests itself in the figure and the inherent geometry of the form and its context.
