Mark Grotjahn

Grotjahn’s most notable work is his Butterfly series – developing on his geometric paintings, the Butterfly series are comprised of thick oil and painted in such a way that the subject appears to stretch, recede and shrink on the canvas. After a skiing accident, Grotjahn was unable to paint with the same intensity that he usually would and could not work for more than two hours at a time;
 


his Face Paintings series sprung from this accident - works depicting a simple geometrical structure of mouth, nose and eyes – Grotjahn worked on sheets of cardboard for this series and would meticulously apply layers upon layers of oil resulting in an almost sculptural finish to his work.