An excerpt from the book, tentatively titled:If art is a conversation human beings have with the world they are thrown into, Marcus Thomas has a lot to say. “Art comes out of suffering,” Marcus admits, reflecting on the lives of the masters,“but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer with your art.”
The conversation he participates in through his brush strokes and colors is one that is informed by suffering. The ultimate point of his conversation, however, is beauty and resilience.
Wreckage is a subtle but recurring theme in Marcus’ work - dilapidated churches, broken windows, fallen birds, birds captured and killed, beached rowboats. Yet, just about every broken thing you find in his paintings is also amazingly full of life - inhabited by birds or surrounded by natural splendor. Though the fragility of life, something Marcus knows so well, is honestly part of the picture, the story never ends in wreckage; suffering never has the last hurrah.
Marcus' paintings, from his depictions of landscapes and songbirds to his more symbolic statements, reveal both a world on the verge and the painter’s effort to save it in meticulous brushstrokes and bold imagery. Marcus is a painter capable of showing his audience the world they live in, which is often a world they have never seen before. His life, and the artistic accomplishment that it is - born of suffering, beautiful and resilient, shows us the same world.
Marcus' work truly reflects his quote "you don’t have to suffer with your art". Each piece is as fresh and inspired as the next. Great post.
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