ARTIST STATEMENT

Drawing, ink, torn pictures, typographic clues, cutting and pasting, constructing juxtaposed incongruities. These are the elements that shift images originally in the service of advertising or journalism from charming and innocent, serious and informative to something deeper, something darker, the creation of a new narrative with a sense of foreboding or mystery. Collage allows the remixing of elements and addition of drawing or painting to create an altered storyline that in turn the viewer is free to reinterpret with their own sense of graphic history and cultural understanding. 

BIOGRAPHY

Mr. Kaufman is a partner at Vivitiv, an issue oriented design firm providing creative services for organizations involved in housing, technology issues, education, the environment, the arts, and more.

The illustrations of Mark Kaufman have appeared in publications and websites worldwide including The New York Times, The Progressive, The Stranger, National Lampoon, Willamette Week, Uppercase Magazine, Fine Cooking Magazine, The Oxford American, Newsbound.com, and The Nib on Medium. Mark is the creator of the weekly comic strips American Affairs Desk and I Drew This Thing. Mr. Kaufman’s work has also been featured in the books Thinking Creatively, The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU, Magnificent Marvelous Me, and The Big Book of Green Design.

Mark has also been interviewed on the Escape From Illustration Island Podcast and DesignTaxi.com. Mr. Kaufman and partner Jacqueline McCarthy have been profiled in Step Inside Design Magazine.

He has served on the executive boards of AIGA Seattle, The Seattle Show, Into the Woods Conference, was co-chair of AIGA Seattle Design Camp, and served a jurist for the Creativity 38 awards. Mark is an editor at Illustration Age and was an Executive Board Member of ICON8 The Illustration Conference and is now Vice President of ICON9. 

His work has been awarded certificates of merit from the Society of Publication Designers, Print Magazine, Graphic Design USA, American Corporate Identity, Creativity, the Seattle Show and the Art Directors Club of New Jersey among others. 

Mark’s drawings and collages have been exhibited in galleries in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis, Denver, and London.