Mark Loebach

There is constant conflict in the process of "finding who we are and what we believe. We have a wrestling with ourselves and those who make up our lives as we attempt to establish those fundamental ‘t r u t h s’ about ourselves. Many times, despite the best of intentions, our course of growth leaves us in a cluster of disarray, collectively and individually.

In the series of work, "Assessment: Searching for Identity," artist Mark Loebach tries to evaluate everything that makes up his environment and examine the essence of his own identity. When making these honest assessments, Loebach finds that he is not always satisfied with the answers, and it’s that dialogue that creates these visual battles. "Assessment: Searching for Identity" is a collection of large-scale paintings of bodies in motion. Part time-lapse, part cross-section, the images reveal the bold tension of a tug-of-war—muscles flexing, pushing, pulling. Others suggest a more subtle encounter—a dance perhaps.
These are images of the complicated knots created during the evolution of self, and the transformations that occur throughout the process of establishing identity. Mark Loebach’s work revolves around human experience, human nature, and translating our interactions with one another. “I like to translate relationships and their cause and effect. I gather all kinds images of bodies in motion,” Loebach explains, "then I take all these images and begin to dismantle them, overlap them, and rebuild them. It's a fantastic process, because I loose myself in the conflict, I twist and turn with every arm and leg trying to establish my own response to the moment, and give that response a visual forum to work itself out in.”

Mark Loebach is a self-taught artist and currently lives in Louisville, CO. He has exhibited extensively in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

"No one is good, no one is evil; everyone is both, in the same ways and in different ways." - Pail Gauguin

"I am a man traveling down a road that may lead nowhere, lost in a cruel and stupid dream... and still I keep walking." - Waiting for the Barbarians