Trifon Markov

Growing up, our home was a small museum of inherited canvases, the walls layered with the work of three generations before me. I am the fourth link in that chain. My mother was exhibiting her art before I was born, and the rest of my family seemed to live with paint on their hands—artists, craftsmen, and teachers whose stories were told in color rather than words.
Trees and flowers became my first companions on paper. Their shapes and rhythms taught me how to see, long before I began drawing figures in after‑school studios and later in art college. My work drifts toward a whimsical world—mystical, slightly unreal, and charged with a quiet, magical atmosphere. Traditional training gave me a sturdy backbone: I learned how to catch a fleeting idea, hold it still for a moment, and patiently develop it into a finished image. After college, I spent nearly a decade in conversation with the European masters—Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch—copying their works stroke by stroke to understand not just what they painted, but how they felt.
In 2013, my family and I moved from Northern Europe to Portland, Oregon, and the landscape rewrote my palette. The mossy greens, silver light, and rain‑softened edges of local...

MA (Special Education)
2025-2027
Arizona State University, Arizona.

BA (Psychology)
2023-2025
Portland State University, Portland, Oregon.

BA (Fine Arts and Jewelry)
2008-2013
Abramcevo Industrial Art College, Moscow, Russia

2005-2008
After Art School Program

Dragon Fire Gallery
Cannon Beach, OR
2016 – Present
Dragon Fire Gallery exhibits my works in a permanent group show, which tends to change twice yearly.

37th Annual Best of the Northwest Art Festival
Seattle, WA
2026

Blackfish Gallery
Portland, OR
2025
Group exhibition

Guardino Gallery
Portland, OR
2025
Group exhibition.

Festival of the Arts
Lake Oswego, OR
2024

Chehalem Cultural Center
Newberg, OR
2024
Group Exhibition

The Other Art Fair
Chicago, Il
2022

MarkovCo Art Gallery
Portland, OR
2016-2019
Gallery owner