Mark Bishop (b. 1959) is a self-taught artist based in Portland, Oregon. His portraits feature monumental figures that evoke both struggle and resilience. Using painterly light and layered brushwork, Mark sculpts each subject into vivid, almost tactile forms that capture the wrinkles, wear, and quiet beauty of his subjects.

Working primarily from photographs sourced from magazines and representing both iconic figures and lay folk, Mark’s portraits possess a strong sense of gravity and presence. He draws inspiration from Chuck Close’s large-scale portraits, appreciating how their magnitude and focus on the face tells a deeper story about the subjects’ lives. He studies Caravaggio’s dramatic use of light, which informs his approach to contrast and structure, and the work of Andy Warhol, which influences his use of bold, and often unexpected, colors used in non-traditional ways.

Deeply rooted in his spirituality, Mark Bishop’s belief in God is the driving force behind his artistic practice. His work aims to assist in God’s mission to save souls for the Kingdom. This spiritual impulse places him within a long tradition of Outsider Art shaped by religious influence, as seen in the works of Howard Finster, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Augustine Lesage, Madge Gill, and William Edmondson. While not all of Bishop’s paintings feature explicit religious iconography, many are underpinned by spiritual overtones that inform his conceptual approach.