Cover | Mark Stock
Max (2006, oil on canvas). Image courtesy of Modernism Inc., San Francisco. Mark Stock’s paintings connect viewers to the euphoria, loneliness and sometimes fatal entanglements of romance. Often melodramatic and tinged with irony, Stock’s images illustrate love’s power to provoke our best—and most illicit—behavior. In Max, we find a young boy reading a heart-shaped note: a Valentine? His parents’ love letters? Evidence of a love affair discovered in the pocket of one of his father’s—or mother’s—coats? The boy’s awkward pose, his literal bringing to light of the surreptitious note, evokes an air of mystery, of curiousity, of discovery, and hint of his own sexual awakening to come. Barnaby Conrad III, author of Mark Stock Paintings, writes, “Stock is an emotional alchemist.” Born in Germany in 1951 where his father was serving in the U.S. Army, Stock lived the transient childhood of an Army brat and landed in California in 1976. Stock is represented by Modernism Gallery, 685 Market Street, San Francisco. For further information, call (415) 541-0461 or e-mail info@modernisminc.com.
