Mark Eliason
1967–
The mixed media work of Mark Eliason needs to be seen in person to fully appreciate it. When you see them in photos, they are powerful, emotional based, yet whimsical, art – little girls holding balloons, angels and fallen angels, animals and icons. But see them up close and they become something more. They are Pop Surrealistic collages painstakingly made up of thousands of tiny scraps of paper, taking 120 to 175 hours to complete. It’s easy to spend time admiring the tiny details, nuance and, yes, Easter eggs hidden in plain sight within the overall composition of each piece.
It starts with cutting up recycled magazine images into thousands of small scraps. Then he starts layering and glueing the different media he uses to a plywood substrate. Each scrap becomes the pigment Eliason uses to build the piece and tell the story he wants to share. He weaves layers and layers of texture, scraps, paper and tissue into images that have struck a vibe and chord with the art community and collectors alike.
READ MORE +Although he showed an aptitude to draw at an early age, Eliason didn’t fully embrace becoming an artist until he reached his 50’s. His stepfather was a contractor, so he grew up in the trades. He attended the University of Minnesota Duluth as a chemical engineering major. He later made the switch to fine arts but ultimately dropped out of college in his senior year and fell back into carpentry.
After getting his contractor’s license, Eliason worked as a general contractor, eventually owning a small construction company with his wife. During this time, he didn’t completely lose his artistic passion. Every once in a while, he’d pick up a pencil and draw a few things. He also took up decorative decoy carving and even had one win best in show at the Pacific Flyway Association in Sacramento, California.
In 2017, everything changed, “When I turned 50, I did the math – I had fewer years left than I had lived through” said Eliason. “There was pretty much an epiphany. It was like turning on the light switch. I just decided I was going to do it. I’d get up in the morning and create for a couple hours before work, then I’d get home at night and do a couple more. This would go on every day until it became kind of a muscle memory.”
He started off just doing hyper realistic pencil drawings. After a year and a half, he moved on to painting, some watercolors, some acrylics, some charcoals. Then he found his way to the mixed media work he is doing today.
Eliason’s next major milestone came several years later when his art side hustle started to supersede his construction company revenue. At that point he sold his company and started working full time as an artist. He still believes in hard work and perspiration of inspiration.
“The inspiration, it’s kind of a fool’s gold. You just have to do the work. You’ve got to chase it and it can be done. Just look at my story. In the past, I kind of waited to get inspired by something to do the art. But that just doesn’t work. For me the inspiration is kind of a decision, it’s just doing the work. If I wait around for that feeling or emotion to make something, it just doesn’t happen.”
His passion and process show in the painstaking work he puts into each piece. They are beautiful, whimsical and intricate. And they are one other thing: intentional.
