MarkTansey.com is a tribute to Mark Tansey (b. 1949), an American Painter whose paintings are at once realistic, densely textured, perplexing, and filled with allusions to art and literature.

From an early age, Mark Tansey was exposed to pictures of works of art by way of his art historian parents, who were authorities in the field. His approach to painting reflects a deep knowledge of art, as many of his motifs are either lifted from historical paintings or depict important artists and philosophers. The recognizability of his illustrative images, however, is accompanied by allegories of his own devising about the meaning of art and the mystery of the human impulse to make images.

Each painting is carefully calculated both in terms of technique and meaning. The single hue in which his paintings are rendered acts as a constant reminder of the essential falsehood of all painting, and as a means to focus on the ideas presented. Tansey achieves the precise photographic-like quality of his canvases by a complicated set of maneuvers involving the application of gesso and either washing, brushing and/or scraping the monochromatic paint into it. The specificity of his technique extends to the ideas probed. Tansey's subjects are fantastic, sometimes surreal scenes in which intellectual theories about art are dramatized, often complete with portraits of "characters" drawn from art history.

Forward Retreat describes the slipperiness of perception and questions the validity of innovation in art. The central image of horseback riders in this canvas is painted as a reflection on water, thereby raising questions about perception. The riders, all outfitted in uniforms of Western powers (American, French, German, and British), represent the nationalities of artists who came to dominate 20th century art history, and are depicted seated backwards on their horses, focused on a distant receding horizon, oblivious to the fact that their steeds trample on the crushed ruins of myriad pottery and objets d'art. With typically dry humor, Tansey implies two conclusions: that art progresses on the ruins of its own history, and that art making is propelled in part by unconscious forces, while the conscious mind is busied with contemplation of the past.

Courtesy of broadartfoundation.org