Mark Horst

Mark Horst grew up in small town Minnesota.  He studied pottery and printmaking in highschool and college, but his encounter with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker led to years of very different work.  After earning a PHD in theology from Yale University, he spent time teaching and working toward neighborhood renewal in South Minneapolis.  He pursued the craft of painting and drawing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the New York Studio School.  He lives in Abuquerque.

 "If paint were a means of freezing time and protecting us form the dangerous life of the spirit, I would put down my brushes.  But for me painting is a way of breaking time's grip and setting loose something wild and strong."

Mark horst caarries a quiver of painterly gifts.  His startling work reveals wild pinpricks of the eternal, often in the subtlest of images.  Make no mistake, the paintings sometimes hold our feet the flame-a door betwen a collectively understood image and some new paint-spirit that comes hurtling through.  Not always a comfortable experience.  That door is also a gateway between the tacit and the explicit-his sheer feel and technique is obvious, but there are other energies at work here too, some ancient condition of the soul.  Horst is one of the few new painters to hold the paradox of tradition and innovation within him there is brilliance here. 

Martin shaw, author, teacher  and painter.