2022
Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to Los Angeles at the age of ten.
In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist John T. Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time. Riddle remarked, "You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life.
Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his bachelor’s degree in art education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach, and a master’s of fine arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. In 2022 Greenfield’s work was the subject of a 20-Year retrospective at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, from which the Crocker Art Museum acquired a piece for their permanent collection.
Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States — most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014, and in 2002 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea.
Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship
(COLA 2012), the California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016) and Loghaven Artist Residency in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2021. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016.
From 1993–2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) and the Harpo Foundation.
Find original Mark Greenfield paintings and other art on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by William Turner Gallery)
Balthazar
By Mark Steven Greenfield
Located in Santa Monica, CA
One of the three biblical ‘magi’ or ‘wise men,’ King Balthazar gave the highly prized gift of liquid myrrh to Jesus upon his birth. Balthazar was an African King...
Gold Leaf
Celia
By Mark Steven Greenfield
Located in Santa Monica, CA
With Halo, Greenfield brings the stories of Black folk-saints, martyrs, freedom-fighters, survivors, magicians, and visionaries back into view.
Gold Leaf
Letitia Munson
By Mark Steven Greenfield
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Halo presents an amazing cast of historical black figures, most of whom were legendary and mythic characters in their time, but have been nearly lost to the vagaries and biases of hi...
Gold Leaf
Consequences
By Mark Steven Greenfield
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Greenfield's versions are rendered in the Byzantine style of their art historical predecessors, with the black Virgin Mother and Baby Jesus as the central focus within circular compositions, or tondos. These tondos float amongst abstract discs, set within fields of lustrous, gold leaf. The Madonnas predominate before a variety of backgrounds, which were traditionally innocuous. Greenfield, however, presents these backdrops as various revenge fantasies, where white supremacists are cast in the role of victims, suffering the fates...
Gold Leaf
Zumbi dos Palmares
By Mark Steven Greenfield
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Halo presents an amazing cast of historical black figures, most of whom were legendary and mythic characters in their time, but have been nearly lost to the vagaries and biases of history as seen through a white lens. With Halo, Greenfield brings the stories of Black folk-saints, martyrs, freedom-fighters, survivors, magicians, and visionaries back into view. Many of the figures are from the 1400-1800s, a timeframe that corresponds with Europeans beginning to use racial distinction as a tool to justify slavery. Greenfield honors their simultaneously disturbing and astounding lives by bestowing them with halos, traditionally seen as reverential symbols of adoration and respect. “I am reimagining what a saint is,” Greenfield says. “Maybe in studying their stories, they can inform us on better ways to live.” Thought to have been a descendent of central African royalty...
Gold Leaf
Chamber Made
By Mark Steven Greenfield
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Greenfield's versions are rendered in the Byzantine style of their art historical predecessors, with the black Virgin Mother and Baby Jesus as the central focus within circular compo...
Gold Leaf
SAINT TATIANA
By Viacheslav Kaidash
Located in Zofingen, AG
This painting, executed in rich shades of blue and gold, depicts Saint Tatiana in a moment of deep spiritual connection with nature. The central figure is Saint Tatia...
Canvas, Oil Pastel, Acrylic
Crystal Vision
By Madonna Phillips
Located in Rye, NY
Madonna Phillips work evolved into mixed media, fabric surface design, and working with glass beads. I became an exhibiting member of fine art guilds, Piedmont Craftsmen in Winston Salem, and Carolina Designer Craftsmen, Raleigh, NC. The 1990’s brought more change and participation in national shows. Her work took a personal and feminist direction using humor in statement based work and storytelling, just as Betty Friedan...
Mixed Media
Gods & Goddesses
By Tony Dagradi
Located in New Orleans, LA
My decades-long career in contemporary jazz directly informs my work as a visual artist. For me, music has always had a visual component, with the diverse elements of music suggesti...
Paper, Varnish
"Free from religion"
By Valery Tatar
Located in Edinburgh, GB
One of the most fascinating topics in religion for me remains the theme of the Last Supper. What did Jesus say to his disciples? This is not the first interpretation I have made on t...
Canvas, Oil, Acrylic
St Michael, Painting, Oil on Canvas
By Valerie Vescovi
Located in Yardley, PA
Got a sudden urge to paint some Saints, the Archangels are my faves because they are angels and saints. This is St. Michael defender in battle and protector. I felt that he had to be...
Oil
"WINGED GODDESS"
By Astian Rey
Located in Edinburgh, GB
From the depths of form, the visage of the Winged Goddess gradually emerges — not a woman, not an angel, but a being that unites the heavens and matter. Her gaze is like the threshol...
Steel, Enamel
