Mark Ross

If you can believe this… my father wanted me to be an artist – a painter. I was schooled early on for it and did become one. Eventually, I took another path. It took me almost forever to come back to myself, to me the artist who didn’t want to be an artist.

I’ve lived in New York City with 1 wife and 5 cats for quite some time. Having left the fine arts arena long ago in order to make a living, I returned once again having morphed into a photographic artist with a painter’s eye, so my work is about both disciplines and probably because of my early formal training in classical music and later as a jazz guitarist, I see the world as visually structured and I improvise on that in a lyrical and often quirky way. I’m thematic and ridiculously curious; always looking. Bill Brandt and Harry Callahan were my favorite photographers and Claude Monet and Willem deKooning were my favorite painters. There were many others that shaped my vision just as with other young aspiring artists. “It’s the things I notice that shape my mind.”

Education:

Studied and painted at The People’s Art Center/Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
Studied life drawing at the Art Students League, NYC.
Studied fine art and graphic design at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,PA.
Studied advertising, graphic design & photography at The School of Visual Arts, NYC.
Apprenticed to Harper’s Bazaar, surrealistic fashion photographer William Silano, NYC.
Retired from working as a professional interiors photographer.
Came full circle, returning again to the fine arts.