Artist Mark Horton
Visits the Seabrook Island Artist Guild
Tuesday, September 18
2:00-4:00pm at the Lake House
The Seabrook Island Artist Guild’s first meeting of the fall season will be on Tuesday, September 18, from 2:00 – 4:00 pm, at the Lake House and will feature the well-known Charleston artist Mark Horton. Mark is one of the most popular guest artists, having done demonstrations and workshops for the guild for nine consecutive years.
This year we have requested that Mark demonstrate the process of painting the various trees found in the Lowcountry. This has always been a challenge to artists in terms of color selection; sequence of values, i.e., light to dark or dark to light; “building” the tree, i.e., branches first, leaves last or vice versa; detailing the trunk; adding shadows and “sky holes”, etc.
If you have ever thought about learning to paint or returning to painting, or if you are even just interested in learning about the process, this would be a wonderful and informative program to see. Mark is a great teacher and a very interesting presenter. Everyone is invited to come see this master at work.
Mark Horton was born in rural North Carolina. After graduating from East Carolina University School of Art in 1983, Horton moved to New York City to begin a career in advertising and design. His eighteen years of living in New York were spent working as a creative director in various advertising agencies and eventually founding his own design company. Those years provided Horton an invaluable opportunity to view and study firsthand the seemingly endless number of masterworks in the city’s museums and galleries. He became particularly fascinated with the works of George Inness, Herman Herzog, Frederick Church and the tonalist photographer Edward Steichen. He was also captivated by the realism of John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer as well as the romantic landscapes of the Hudson River School painters. The experience had a profound effect on his artistic development. During these years, Horton continued to nurture his “fine art side,” drawing, sketching and painting whenever possible. In early 2001, he made the decision to devote himself full-time to painting. He left New York City and returned to his Southern roots, moving to Charleston.
Horton is especially interested in the effects of light and weather upon the landscape. He paints beyond a literal interpretation of a scene to portray nature in a way that reflects his own ideas and sensibilities while capturing the spirit, color and changing light of a place.