Belgrade Art Studio Residency

E Mark Artist

Year of Residency: 2022

Bio  
E.Mark Gross (b. 1963), artist, game designer, entrepreneurial-attorney & yogi.

I was born and raised in New York, USA and now divide my time between there and the Philippines’ capitol region. I’m blessed with family – including my loving wife and three wonderful children, other family and friends.

Since my teens, I’ve enjoyed being creative as a visual artist for myself, family and friends.  At

ph.linkedin.com/in/e-mark-gross-33422b10 there’s substantial information about my professional career as an attorney, as a lead game designer and otherwise … before becoming a full time professional artist in 2017.

Through color, form & patterns, I strive to bring out a harmony and positivity within each artwork, usually a mixed media work or painting … or digital abstraction, see by way of example Travels in the Cosmos, Abstract animation, 2022 – https://fb.watch/cX3Xe9GLeJ/. Enjoy the ending’s “reveal” of my hidden within the artwork E signature.

“Vibrant” – “Colorful – “Intricate” – “Dynamic” – “Organic” – “Exotic” – “Aquatic” . . . is how patrons often describe my abstractions.

My non-representational abstracts derive from a deep part of what moves me.

I’m often inspired by nature’s colorful phenomena, many of which are in slow flux …. coral reefs, swaying gardens, constellations, the northern, southern & zodiacal lights …….. Ideally, my art subliminally brings the viewer to suspend his or her momentary temporal concerns – and to immerse into a place of zen-like calm positivity.

And because we all like to play, in my mixed media artwork I include my signature E in a manner which is game-like. Enjoy finding the hidden  E .

And, every now and again, I go in a different direction artistically, creating in the medium of photography or otherwise, including my substantial collaboration as conceptualist and co-creator of surrealist digital artworks with Jeffrey Q. Guanlao aka JickJick Artist. Together, we created each of the 22 major arcana cards of the tarot deck. See, jickjick.com/tarot-cards/ 

Recently, I’ve been expanding my abstract vision by creating larger works; 19” by 25” mixed media works and abstract triptychs and polyptychs.

During my residency in urbane and beautiful and Belgrade, I’m looking forward to expanding my creativity with the benefit of insights from accomplished MFA Baxx Vladimir, who heads up the Residency and to whom I’m highly appreciative. Thanks Baxx for the chance to learn and grow with new inspirations!

Artist Statement

My professional life has been built around systems. As an attorney at firms including Troutman Pepper — one of the world’s largest — and later as a lead game designer, I spent decades constructing frameworks where precision, internal logic and structure determined how well something worked. That discipline is a foundation of my abstract visual language I’ve been developing since the 1980s.

I make mixed media: solos and polyptych systems, on paper, board and canvas. Each composition is built from a consistent visual language of biomorphic form, calibrated color and deliberate spatial rhythm.

A complementary strand of my practice — Arrangements — begins differently. I compose art media alongside marked and unmarked substrates, photograph the result, and develop those images into editioned giclée prints.

My artworks’ visual language extends into animation, where compositions unfold across time rather than space — reinforcing the underlying structure that connects the work across formats.

Every work contains a hidden E — my signature embedded within the composition. Finding it is optional. Looking closely enough to find it changes how you see the work.

I am an American artist. I work and exhibit internationally, with work held in private collections across multiple countries and exhibited in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and beyond. More at emarkartist.com Instagram.com/emarkartist facebook.com/emarkartist and behance.net/emarkartist.

Links