Mark Dunst

When I was a kid, we lived in a sprawling apartment complex in Denver, CO. I must've been 3 or 4 at the time. On the way home from the tiny community pool, I realized I had left my favorite t-shirt behind. It was navy, short-sleeved and showcased a muscular cartoon football player with a thick neck that stopped at the collar where my head became the player's head. (It didn’t hurt that I had a helmet-shaped haircut.) I looked all over for it: around the pool deck, under the chairs, at the bottom of the pool, by the bushes, in the parking lot—several times. My brother finally shouted, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?! My shirt! I shot back, my eyes darting around in desperation, glaring at the pool-goers who obviously stole it. YOU'RE WEARING IT!! Whaaaaa...? Such a relief to look down and find my favorite shirt that had never been missing. That's a large part of what I think my abstract painting practice is, an opportunity to search for the things I thought I had lost only to find that I’d been looking for them in the wrong places.

Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “Not till we are completely lost, or turned round...do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the w...

BFA, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1993

2023

Solo Show: Beyond the Now, Galley 114, Portland, OR
Group Show, Artworks Northwest Biennial, Umqua Valley Arts, Curated by Arvie Smith, Roseburg, OR
Solo, Small Works, Cellar Z, Portland, OR
Group Show, Winter Exhibition, Jen Tough Gallery and Artist Alliance, Artsy
Group Show, The Space Between, Artist Alliance, Artsy, Curated by Michael Shemchuck

2022

Group show, METAXIS, E. Serreau Studio/Gallery, Portland, OR.
Solo show, The Joinery at St. Johns, Portland, OR
Solo show, The Joinery, Downtown Portland, OR
The Sound of Forgetting, Virtual Exhibition.
Group show, A Thousand Words, Walters Cultural Arts Center, Hillsboro, OR
Solo show, Ongoing Renewal, Nest, Portland, OR
The Gaze Behind Closed Eyes. Virtual Exhibition.

2021

Yellow Chair Group Show, presented by M. David&Co and Castle Hill, (Available on Artsy)
Virtual Residency. Michael David, Yellow Chair Salon
Two-person Show, Sidestreet Arts Gallery, Portland, OR
Virtual Residency. Michael David, Yellow Chair Salon
Vissage, Portland, OR
J.H., Portland, OR

2020

Group Exhibition: Abstraction III, Envision Arts, Online
Group Exhibition, Art Room Contemporary, Online
Solo Exhibition, Jeffery Howard / rain, Portland, OR
Group Exhibition, MAC Group Show, Portland, OR

201...