NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
May 22, 2008

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Ann Dee Lee
Public Information Director
Oklahoma Arts Council
(405) 521-2931
anndee@arts.ok.gov

OKLAHOMA URBAN LANDSCAPES
HIGHLIGHTED AT STATE CAPITOL

Oklahoma City, OK – From images of city street scenes to paintings of the prairie, Tulsa artist Mark Lewis creates paintings that celebrate the distinctive Oklahoma urban landscape. His exhibit, Mark Lewis: Paintings, Drawings and Collages, will be on display in the first floor of the East Gallery at the State Capitol through July 13. Curated by the Oklahoma Arts Council, the East Gallery is open daily from 8:30-5:00.

Lewis currently serves as assistant art professor at the University of Tulsa and is a former visiting lecturer at Philbrook Museum of Art. He is one of the artists whose work has been commissioned for the Bank of Oklahoma Center Arena in Tulsa.

He explains that his work is derived from direct observation. “The Oklahoma sky, the light, the figures in the landscape and the sense of scale excite me. I love the way the light reveals a sign or a brick facade.  Despite the obvious distractions of speeding cars, the temperamental weather, the Oklahoma wind, and the occasional sidewalk critic, I enjoy working, observing, life on the street.”

Lewis was born in Oklahoma City in 1959 and attended High School in McAlester. He studied painting at Oklahoma State University and received a BFA in painting at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, and an MFA in painting at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

In 2002, Lewis was a visiting artist at the New York Studio School in New York City and then taught painting and drawing at the Montone Arts Program in Montone, Italy. He had his first and second solo New York exhibitions of paintings in 2002 and 2005, at the Tatistcheff Gallery.  He had three solo exhibitions in 2006 at Living Arts of Tulsa, Georgetown University and Northwestern Missouri State University.

For more information, contact Ann Dee Lee, Public Relations Director, Oklahoma Arts Council, (405) 521-2931 or anndee@arts.ok.gov.

ABOUT THE OKLAHOMA ARTS COUNCIL

The Oklahoma Arts Council is a state agency whose mission is to improve lives through the arts by promoting and sustaining the development of a thriving arts environment, which is essential to quality of life, education and economic vitality for all Oklahomans.

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