Mark Penner-Howell

Invocations

After a career in advertising that spanned nearly two decades, I moved to Denver with my wife Kae and began making art full time.

Artist’s Statement

I am interested in exploring the idea of the ‘sacred in the ordinary’ and in blurring the distinction between notions of secular and profane. In these paintings I am hoping to tease out some beauty and mystery from the noise and chaos of daily life. Several of these paintings also delve into the relationship between nature and spirituality. Much of what we think we understand about nature is biased by our own projections onto it, so it is no wonder that animals play important symbolic functions in most religions, especially white animals. These paintings explore animals as archetypes, chiefly through the lens of my own dreams, meditations, and imaginative wanderings