​Mark Brennan lives in Brooklyn, New York and Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Mass.  Stylistically he owes a debt to traditional East Asian painting in his elongated watercolors.  His small pictures encased in boxes have affinities with an array of singularly American artists; one can draw references to William Trost Richards, Martin Johnson Heade and John Frederick Kennsett, to William Harnett and John Peto, Joseph Cornell and Vija Celmins.  Like the early Hudson River School and many 20th Century abstract artists, he unapologetically experiments with altruistic and transcendent functions for art, both in his work and in his curatorial enterprises.    Recent projects include a solo show of his Space in a Box paintings at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture and Islamic Art/Christian Space (curator) at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, both in Manhattan, attempting to build bridges between two seemingly irreconcilable parties.  The latter exhibit was the first ever show of Islamic artwork in an active Christian place of worship.    He is a member of Openings Artists Collective in New York.  On Cape Cod his work can be seen at the Off Main Gallery in Wellfleet.












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