Bay Area artist blends pop culture with deeper themes
DUNEDIN, Fla. - Each time someone looks at a piece of art by Mark Eliason, he hopes they see something different. With many pieces composed of hundreds, maybe thousands of individual raw pieces, it happens often.
"Find a little something in there, a little nuisance that you didn’t notice before," he said.
Eliason is a mixed-media artist. In his case, mixed refers to a bevy of different raw materials, from magazines, newspapers and comic books to hand-drawn sections of charcoal work.
"With the magazine-scrap collage with the magazine pieces, I use the individual magazine pieces kind of like paint pigment, so I basically paint with scraps," he explained.
Eliason has dabbled in art his entire life, but he has worked on his craft daily for the past 5-6 years. A single piece can take more than 100 hours to complete.
"Lot of patience, lots of modge-podge glue," he said with a laugh.
Much of his work feature easily recognizable icons of pop culture, like Star Wars, John Wick and Prince.
"Pop culture seems to resonate with folks," he said.
Because there’s sometimes thousands of pieces of raw material in Eliason’s work, sometimes he hides cheeky easter eggs in his pieces. He cites Sesame Street’s Big Bird in an example, simply saying "people love seeing him". He says much of his work has an underlying theme, especially if examined deeply. He loves it when customers find it, or if they find their own message within the art.
"Just the creative process in general is very rewarding," Eliason said. "That people really enjoy my artwork, I guess that’s best part about it."
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