Feeding Ducks by Mark Gingerich
A Breath of Plein Air
Faith-driven impressionist painter draws inspiration from new and old
“The normal way of entering the gallery system,” says central Ohio-based painter Mark Gingerich, “is to take high-quality images of a large portfolio of work and present it to the gallery.”
“I didn’t really know much about that,” says Gingerich.
Instead, he found himself exploring the Chasen Gallery in Sarasota, Fla., when the director, Bart Carlsman, noticed his eye scanning the collections.
Carlsman approached Gingerich and asked if he knew art (“Even though he couldn’t tell me from Adam,” says Gingerich) and, a short time later, Gingerich painted three pieces for a client and signed on at the gallery. All this, done with minimal experience in professionally presenting his craft.
Gingerich isn’t one to attribute this sort of good fortune to luck, though. Like in many areas of his art and career, he attributes this success to his faith.
“I just simply prayed,” he says about his opportunity in Florida.
His spirituality certainly came in handy from an early age. When he was young, after emigrating from West Germany, he went to Shekinah Christian School in Plain City. From the age of 13, Gingerich was intrigued with the art of drawing.
“It was amazing how I found myself able to just look at something and draw it,” he says. “That fascination definitely led me to do more in art.”
In high school, Gingerich entered the Accelerated Christian Education National Convention, an art contest that put him in competition with his peers across the country.
He won the state championship, then the national championship.
Along with Gingerich’s success in scholastic competition, the principal of his school, Don Showalter, inspired him to pursue what he loved.
“He was very encouraging to me,” says Gingerich. “But then I got married and I started a masonry business.”
It was a drastic change in direction for the budding artist, but family came first: “After having children, I ultimately dropped art until I was 28 years old. By then, I wasn’t sure if construction was the field that brought me happiness in the long term.”
“And I prayed to God about that,” says Gingerich.
Gingerich decided then that he needed to pursue art.
“And I did,” he says. “I built myself a studio. I went to museums and copied paintings. I took workshops with painters I really admired. I worked hard at it.”
The artists Gingerich associates with are overwhelmingly those who paint en plein air, the practice of painting outside in the natural scenery that the artist depicts. This style is especially important to impressionists, who rely on natural light to achieve their vibrant colors.
Artists such as Matt Smith, John Budicin and Ralph Oberg are among Gingerich’s colleagues who subscribe to the same plein air technique. Like these painters, Gingerich draws inspiration from pre-impressionists such as the Barbizon school; French impressionists, like Monet, who founded the style; and American impressionists such as Chase, Metcalf and Sargent who brought the style across the Atlantic.
From his contemporaries, Gingerich says, “I learned from them how they approached painting philosophically and practically. I learned how to go out in the field and paint life, and how to approach the landscape and my subject matter.”
“I learned how they paint in a short period of time and how to understand changing lighting conditions,” he says. “Being encouraged by them and being around other artists is a really great experience.”
One breakthrough collaboration was the Ohio bicentennial project Paint Ohio in 2003, when Gingerich and five others painted in each of Ohio’s 88 counties to commemorate the beauty of the state.
Gingerich is featured at Brandt-Roberts Galleries in the Short North; Berlin Creek Gallery near Millersburg; Wells Gallery on Kiawah Island, near Charleston, S.C.; and Lily Pad Gallery in Watch Hill, R.I.
Zach Maiorana is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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