2020
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)
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
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
The French Solution
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
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
What's That Funky Smell?
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
Gort's Directive
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
Catarina
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Oil on canvas, carved wood frame
Canvas, Wood, Oil
Spanish Contemporary Art by Leticia de Prado - Margarita
By Leticia de Prado
Located in Paris, IDF
Oil on canvas infused with rhinestones & silk mixed media Leticia de Prado is a Spanish artist born in 1964 who lives and works in Estepona, near Marbella, Spain. She is best known for her extraordinary recycled collage monumental artworks on discarded cargo wood pallets indulging with many different media including dried tree...
Canvas, Oil
Spanish Contemporary Art by Leticia de Prado - Carlton
By Leticia de Prado
Located in Paris, IDF
Oil on canvas infused with rhinestones & silk mixed media Leticia de Prado is a Spanish artist born in 1964 who lives and works in Estepona, near Marbella, Spain. She is best known ...
Oil, Canvas
Between Fragilities
By Ritchelly Oliveira
Located in Porto, 13
Ritchelly Oliveira, visual artist, began his work in 2012, shortly after enrolling in visual arts at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), he found...
Canvas, Charcoal, Acrylic
French Contemporary Art by KEJ - Cauchemar du Prédateur
By Kej
Located in Paris, IDF
KEJ is a French artist born in 1959 who lives & works in Paris, France. He is considered to belong to the movement of Figuration Libre & Outsider Art. His works are referenced in the...
Canvas, Oil
That Perches in the Soul
By Tamera Avery
Located in Burlingame, CA
'That Perches in the Soul' contemporary portrait oil on canvas painting by Tamera Avery, whose paintings are created with wit and wisdom. Avery's work deals with serious themes inclu...
Cotton Canvas, Oil
