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branching out
an artist and gallery owner finds room to grow
by St aci G ola r
AlreAdy well-known for his striking kinetic sculptures that have become a familiar part of the landscape near his Canyon road gallery, artist Mark white is moving in new directions. “I like to experiment a lot in both art and in business,” white says, sitting among the brightly colored paintings and geometric sculptures in his new gallery, Mark white Contemporary Art, which he opened in September in Santa Fe’s railyard district. white launched his first gallery, Mark white Fine Art, on Canyon road in 2008. “The recession made me more serious about [starting] my own business. I wanted control over making sales and keeping people I already worked with employed,” he says. “It was a decision sort of based on fear, but it was also empowering.” while his first gallery has been successful, drawing a steady and loyal collector base, that hasn’t been enough to satisfy white. Something pushed him to continue exploring and expanding, both literally and figuratively. “I kept thinking about doing work that just didn’t seem to fit in the space,” he says, referring to the small, historic adobe-home-turned-gallery on Canyon road. “This [material] just wasn’t going to work there aesthetically or physically.” Galvanized by the success of his first art business venture, white took matters into his own hands and opened the more spacious sister gallery in the railyard, complete with a new series of work that includes welded stainless steel sculptures, painted engravings on aluminum, and more. “I thought about opening a gallery in another city, like los Angeles, and then realized that maybe I could do it here, in this area, and achieve the same kind of thing,” he says. So far, interest in the new space has been encouraging. “not everyone gets to experiment like this in business,” white notes, “I’ve been very lucky to do so.” Mark White Contemporary Art, 1611 Paseo de Peralta, markwhitefineart.com Mark White, Reflective Moments, oil on panel, 36 x 36 x 2"
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