Collections
Browse Mark's artwork based on themed collections. A select number of pieces are available to purchase as prints & more! Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Subjects
Shop for artwork based on subjects. Each image may be purchased as a canvas print, framed print, metal print, and more! Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Welcome, fine art lovers/collectors! Fifteen years prior to compiling my charcoal & mixed media artwork (inspired mainly by my obsessions with horror, Miami Vice, the female form, and the human condition) on Fine Art America, I - along with my model-actress wife, Ryli Morgan - became known as "On Mark Productions," appearing at horror film conventions up and down the US east coast. We established a worldwide fan base on account of our independent films and music (the latter of which I often released using the moniker of "Marquis"). While we still continue to promote those earlier works both on and off the road, working alone on one new art piece after another is now my main focus.
My story...? Well, I've had a keen interest in creating fine art nearly all my life (my first gallery exhibition was a string painting I did in Kindergarten), with charcoal drawing quickly becoming my own preferred medium. I honed this talent with art classes and photo study throughout high school, and then focused on commissioned portraits in my 20's. Though always a perfectionist, back then I didn't bother "finishing" an image with a background because I'd already exhausted myself - and, quite often, my interest in the piece - with an overly detailed main subject. With age comes patience, however, and I gradually began to focus just as much - if not more so - on what was behind that main subject as I did on it. The trick, still, was finding just the right balance of light and dark to make this rather limiting black and white medium as eye-catching and vibrant as possible.
In late 2015, my creative focus shifted to photo shoots and digital painting, soon trading in my pencils & brushes for a stylus. I'd already photographed Ryli on numerous occasions... To have several more models pose for me was just a natural progression, and with all due respect to each one, “Marquis’ Brothel” is the figurative name I chose to house this collection of beauties meant to satisfy the beast in each of us.
You'll find very few photographs here... I don't consider photography art, only a means to create it. Anyone can snap a picture. The camera itself creates the raw image, while an artist spends hours recreating that image by hand until finally satisfied with every line, color and shadow.
I am that artist, still relying on as many traditional methods as possible to create contemporary art, in an age of ever-evolving AI and apps that turn photos into "art" with just a tap. I hope you enjoy the results of my continued effort, and I greatly appreciate your interest.
MARK "MARQUIS" BARANOWSKI
Charlotte, North Carolina USA