Collection: John-Mark Gleadow - Artist

THE ART OF JOHN-MARK-GLEADOW

John-Mark Gleadow was born in Delaware and graduated from the University of Delaware in 1998 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. Since then, he has worked as a full-time artist.

The extent of Gleadow's artistic training before college was an art class in elementary school. After receiving a Congressional nomination to attend West Point in 1994, John-Mark enrolled at the University of Delaware to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering. As he loved design but not the technical constraints of engineering, he quickly decided to pursue an artist's career. While a job in Graphic Design was considered, Gleadow chose to major in paint painting, taking an introduction to Painting class as an elective.

Early influences on the young artist were Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and Ver Meer. He valued high technical proficiency in the medium of oil paint, coupled with the original and often surreal subject matter. Over the years, this has led him to create work that, in appearance, seems to be a photograph but couldn't take place in reality. An example would be a portrait of a young child emerging from a framed piece of artwork, with his hand resting on the frame: all of it - frame and all - being oil paint. Gleadow's precise technique, coupled with the imaginative subject matter, piques the viewer's interest and brings an authentic sense of life to his artwork.