Café Gallery

Mark Crenshaw: In Bloom

Mark Crenshaw’s verdant landscapes demonstrate a desire to connect on a deeper level with the natural world. Informed by his childhood, when he was surrounded by farms and orchards in Santaquin, Utah, his paintings explore our relationship with the natural resources we use and consume on a daily basis. While modern industrial society has created a divide between ourselves and where these resources come from, Crenshaw advocates for a closer connection.

With an abstracted approach to form, Crenshaw privileges his impression of his subjects above photographic realism. He furthers this visual tension in images that are cut off, extending beyond the edges of the canvas or panel. Without placing any figures in view, Crenshaw subtly draws attention to our relationship to and dependence on these natural resources, and encourages more consciousness of what we use and where it comes from.