Meet Mark Flowers | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mark Flowers and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I was raised in Greenville, SC and a son of a painter and professor at Furman University.. Although he never really sat me down and showed me how to paint, etc.-He was an example to follow. I resisted at first, but always found myself making art about the resistance.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My journey as an artist has been making art that is personal and reflective to events that happen to me.. My strongest work has been an open narrative that tells a story that the viewer can be involved with. Over several decades I have had a mixed media approach to my art that uses photographic style imagery to play the narrative out. I have described this approach as “Visual Poetry”.Conceptually now, see my work as “Visual Jazz”. My direct narratives from before have now become more free-form and abstract. From an inventory of parts, I create an overall composition through improvisation and a spontaneous process. My years of making art have made me stronger and more confident. I trust my instincts and experience more. I have gotten to a place where I can improvise and care less about the rules I have artificially have set up. This new approach is more challenging for me, which in turn has invigorated the studio atmosphere. Any artist wants to grow and I feel this is another moment of growth for me. The challenge now, as it’s always been, is to make a visual composition that will engage you and me.

I am having a one-person show at The Mike Brown Contemporary Gallery in Columbia, SC until December 21st.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Asheville, NC is a great place to visit. The food, the venues, the people are fun and eclectic. The River Arts District, where I have my work on display is a vibrant, creative location where you can get a sense of the creative vibe of the area. We would go to one of the rooftop bars downtown, head over to West Asheville to eat at one of the exciting new restaurants, and then find a table at the Chocolate Factory downtown for a midnight dessert. There are really too many choices…..

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I met my wife, Kristy Higby, in undergraduate school. We were both art majors and soon formed a sense of teamwork about our creative life. We’ve been married now for almost 48 years. We both have taught and made art all our lives. We now live near Asheville, NC and work in our studios in a building on our property.

Website: https://foundwork.art/artists/markflowers

Instagram: @markflowers

Facebook: Mountain Tea Studios