Mark Dunst Art Gallery | Contemporary Abstract Art | Portland, Oregon
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The abyss of not knowing

3/5/2019

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My work develops in a state of not knowing.  I don't have a plan in mind when I start, I have no idea what the finished painting will look like. I even don't know immediately when a painting is done. Working in the unknown this way is challenging. Having no idea if this brush stroke, color, mark I'm going to put down will make or ruin the painting. Again and again, day after day, minute after minute, doubt and fear creep into the psyche—rejection echoing in my head.

It's easy to get seduced into avoiding today's painting session because I can't muster the mental grit to sit in the darkness of the unknown again. But the reward of having endured the unknown and eventually finding my way out is beyond compare. What I seem to be learning over and over is the need to let go. That’s what is so hard about sitting in the unknown, expectations start to creep in and take me out of the present moment. And it's in the present moment where my art is created—where the magic happens. It is in the present moment where I am not afraid to sit in the abyss of not knowing.
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Stuff I noticed this week

3/4/2019

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I don't take enough time to document things that catch my attention. Simple things that pull me out of my normal mindset and just let me look at them for a quiet moment. A few things that caught my attention recently:
  • This alien shadow being cast from apartment utility lines across the street from the hardware store.
  • The variety of beautiful blue- and purple-blacks on the back of a raven and their confident, yet awkward saunter while they size me up.
  • The scrawling of a code on a sidewalk, repeated over and over until it was illegible but left a wonderful texture.
  • The color of the sky after dusk last night driving to the airport. The double-decker bridge cropped the sky and framed the most beautiful soft and intense purpley-pink.
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Just start. Even if you don't know where you’re going.

3/1/2019

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I have no trouble starting a new painting. In fact, it's probably my favorite part of the process. There's no wrong answers at the beginning stage. Every mark has potential but they'll likely be covered up by the end so there's no consequence. I love starting a new painting. (Finishing a painting...that shit's hard.)

I've been trying to start this blog for months! "I'm no writer," "No one'll read it," "I have nothing interesting to say--I'm just trying to figure stuff out" are just a few of the things that rattle around in my mind. But I think that last one--figuring stuff out--might be a good place to start. The what's, the why's, the how's. So I'm hoping this blog will be less about gratuitous pontification and more like scribbles in a notebook casually exploring things that interest me with no grand goal in mind. Seeing where it takes me and making adjustments along the way.

Image: Procreate sketch on iPhone. ©Mark Dunst. All Rights Reserved.
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    Notes to self.

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MARK DUNST GALLERY + STUDIO
1720 NW Lovejoy Street, Suite 121
Portland, OR 97209
​ENTRANCE ON NW 18TH AVE.

503.446.3098

art@markdunst.com

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All Artwork ©2019 Mark Dunst.  All Rights Reserved.

Portland Traditional Homelands
We acknowledge the land on which we sit and which we occupy in Portland. The Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River creating communities and summer encampments to harvest and use the plentiful natural resources of the area.
  • Home
  • Art Gallery
    • Current Exhibition
    • Past Exhibitions >
      • That warm place with no memory
      • On Being
      • Allusive Presence
      • Onset of Abstraction
  • Studio Visit
  • About
    • About the artist
    • FAQs
  • Blog
  • Location