Who, you may ask, is Jurassic Mark?
Why, that would be ME, of course! It's a name I created for myself after the movie, Jurassic Park came out, and I couldn't resist the play on words. It's even more appropriate when I talk about how incredibly OLD I am! I love to talk about what a Jurassic-aged dinosaur I am, that I'm 150 million years old, and that I love to chase after humans to catch and eat them.
It's fun for me, and I guess the scientist in me enjoys it, too. But as an artist, there's another, additional reason for the dino-handle.
Compare and contrast these two images.
The top image is one of my paintings of Joshua Tree National Park. The lower picture is of a poster that was obviously intended to promote the Park.
I work in a very traditional, 19th century style -- I'm not sure if I can honestly call the look "classical realism" or not, although that is my goal in the artwork I make.
On the other hand, the poster has a much more contemporary look, with zonking bright colors and less detail. I've seen paintings by living artists who produce paintings even more colorful and "loose" than the poster.
If you were to go to Google Images and search for "joshua tree paintings," you would find lots more colorful, impressionistic paintings than you would find traditional works like mine. Not that I'm the only one who paints like this, but we seem to be in a vast minority of artists who prefer that look.
Thus -- another dinosaur metaphor. I often feel like I live and work in the past and am somewhat outdated by painters who create in a more colorful, popular way. I know it ain't as simple as that, but it does make me feel like I don't belong in this century, at least as far as art is concerned.
I think I'll go foraging for humans now. You critters aren't the best-tasting meat source around, but you're easy to catch, and I love the way you scream and run...as though that's going to help you. 😄
Mark Junge
