Mark McConnell Sweeney was an American painter whose work moves between abstraction and figuration. His paintings explore atmospheric landscapes, mythic imagery, and the tension between structure and dissolution.
Based in New York City, Sweeney exhibited internationally in Istanbul, Berlin, Heraklion, London, Los Angeles, and New York City.
His work is preserved and researched by the Mark McConnell Sweeney Estate.
Mark McConnell Sweeney (1965–2017)
Denver, Colorado — New York, New York
Artist Statement
Chaos, Mayhem, Tranquility, Upheaval, Resolution
In painting, we attempt to depict tension.
It’s like composing a symphony, only with color, image, space, and light.
Take away, add on. Take away, add on.
Picasso once said that a painting is the sum of its destructions.
The act of painting is like nature —unpredictable and shaped by human influence.
Out of the chaos comes an image with all its tensions and resolution—that can become nature itself.
If successful, the work speaks for itself, and the inconsistencies, abstractions, and contradictions somehow come together to create a kind of order.
—Mark Sweeney, May 2010
The following text was written by Leland Lehrman after visiting Mark Sweeney’s NYC Chinatown studio while the artist was preparing work for an exhibition in Istanbul, Turkey.
Learning the Myth of the Heart
A couple of days ago, I went up an ancient elevator to Mark’s seventh-story loft in Chinatown to check out his work in progress for the Istanbul show.
We did another interview months ago; I dug around in his past for the guiding light behind his work, the direction he’s been going. But he doesn’t want to do that today. He wants to talk about process—how he goes about doing what he does, or how what he does goes about doing him.
I take a look around the studio, hear the sound of water dripping from the sink, hear the classical music on the stereo, and see the wood piled in the corner by the woodstove that keeps him warm.
I look at the numerous oils on the wall, eye them appreciatively, and start in: “So, what’s going on here?” I ask. And we’re off.
For Mark, the paintings are a tension between abstract and figurative work. He wants to get away from storytelling, but finds it impossible.
It amuses and perplexes him—the pull that storytelling exerts on his paintings. He wants to simplify the description of space to emphasize light and to move toward the abstract.
But at the point where he achieves simplicity, he wants to also be specific, because “the specific makes us understand how everything is something that ties us all together.”
Part of its meaning is universal and definite. It “keys us in” to the subject matter.
There’s a tension between atmospheric softness and sharp contrast; specificity where we find resolution.
But painting is inherently intense. That’s what my notes from the session say—like a good jazz solo.
And then we move on to what carries him through the subtle things that happen in the tones, building the painting up.
Something happens—unending mysteries.
It excites him because he will never stop learning.
Nothing contrived, nothing deliberate, except through working to find the key to the mysteries, the jewels, the heart.
Then there’s the hieroglyphics and the elephant stencils, the mythic subject matter. What’s left of Mark’s narrative is mythic—the feeling of myth and the actual tales themselves.
He’s discovering myth through the process of painting.
There are two myths going on here: one, the thematic subject; the other, how he finds the mythic feeling through the act of painting.
The ability to create the sense of myth is the ultimate in painting.
He’s not interested in making things look like they’re supposed to. If you want, there is photography.
He wants to render objects, with a focus on their beauty and poetry. It’s another translation level altogether.
Good paintings, like good poems, feel like they’re being written in another world, about another world.
Anything too obvious or already written must be reapproached.
He talks about the Picasso quote: “Painting is the sum of its destructions.”
“It’s about what you take away—getting rid of what you’re most attached to so nothing gets precious—reducing everything to facilitate direct revelation. No mercy. Pure truth. Things he doesn’t know about beforehand.”
“Art is about what I don’t know about. Most people make art about what they know.”
Mark wants to work with the unknown, both in the technical and spiritual realms.
He wants to “keep looking at it, keep changing, live on.”
“What’s important is the process.”
“What have you learned?” I ask.
He laughs: “I could never explain that.”
And I believe him.
His recent work ranges from a “formal color thing to simplicity and taking away.” It reaffirms his deeply held suspicion and belief about what good painting can be.
It’s an infinite attempt at the same thing.
It’s like mapping the human genome—you discover one thing, and it leads to another thing.
It’s like a million attempts or versions of the same thing without knowing what that thing really is.
“A painting might be nice, but I still don’t know what I’m after, because even the nice ones invite me to go on to the next one.”
Leland Lehrman, New York 2000
EDUCATION
Art Institute of Chicago
University of Vermont
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2012
Hayaka Arti, Istanbul, Turkey
2011
Ghost Shadows, Elga Wimmer Gallery, Chelsea, New York, USA
Geisterschatten, Dada Post, Berlin, Germany
2010
Puffin Room, New York, USA
2008
Ear Up Gallery, New York, USA
2007
Pacafista, New York, USA
2005
John Benton, New York, USA
UTOPIA, Glass Bead Collective, Brooklyn, New York, USA
The Snake Show, New York, USA
2004
The Snake Show, New York, USA
2002
Istanbul International Art Fair, Istanbul, Turkey
Shin Choi, New York, USA
2002–2006
Annual Behind the Green Door, New York, USA
Curator: Bob Musial
2001
Take Heart, New York, USA
2000
Bodrum Castle, Bodrum, Turkey
Asmalı Mescit Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
1999
Eran Gallery, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
Rythmos, Agios Nikolaos, Crete, Greece
Albert Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA
1998
Eran Gallery, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
1993
Fred’s of London, London, England
1990
Kramer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, USA
1989
Painting Chicago, SAIC Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, USA (Group Exhibition)
PUBLISHED WORK
Frequencies, Aloud, online magazine
Henry Holt
Springer Verlag
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Chicago, USA
London, UK
New York, USA
Los Angeles, USA
Heraklion, Greece
Stockholm, Sweden
Berlin, Germany
Istanbul, Turkey
Bodrum Museum, Bodrum, Turkey