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The
Way of
Nature
After
living with HIV for 19 years,
Mark
Coyle,
the Bayou City Art Festival's featured artist,
has
learned the value of a flower
by
Anne H. Roberts
Photo
by Tricia Moreau Sweeney
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"The
ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches
their return./ They grow and flourish and then return
to the source./ Returning to the source is stillness,
which is the way of nature./ The way of nature is unchanging...
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away."
—Tao Te Ching
Admirers
and collectors are drawn to artist Mark Coyle's oil pastels
by their luminous color and beautifully depicted flowers
and landscapes. Collected by such institutions as Exxon,
St. Luke's Hospital, Ingersoll Rand, St. Joseph's Hospital,
and Northwest Chicago Hospital, Coyle's paintings clearly
have an incandescent realism. But few know the spiritual
journey of their creator: that the gay artist has found
such depth in nature as a result of living successfully
with HIV for an amazing 19 years. And now Coyle has been
chosen as the featured artist for this year's Bayou City
Art Festival, March 2426, designing two T-shirts and
the poster for the festival, Orchids for Lynette. One
T-shirt features Mark's signature orchids, while the other
represents sailboats (with rainbow-colored sails), a favorite
image from Clear Lake and Galveston's East Beach, where
Coyle loves to go and meditate.
The
handsome, energetic second-generation Irish-American
artist studied both in New York and Pisa, Italy. Further
artistic influences stem from his travels in Europe
and trips to museums there to study the work of classical
masters, especially the Impressionists. After school,
he began a career in commercial art and won numerous
Abby awards for his work in advertising. Being diagnosed
HIV positive in 1981 when he was 24 strengthened Coyle's
dedication to his artwork, as well as his resolve toward
survival and helping others who were affected. As a
volunteer, he has been active at Bering and with programs
like "Aid for AIDS" and "Play Safe."
With
the stress of taking care of his companion Bob,
now deceased, Mark's HIV developed into full-blown AIDS
in 1995, and the visual artist almost lost his sight
permanently. "The six months of being blind left scarring
on my eyes," Mark says. "Oddly enough, this created
a more fluid effect in my pastel work." Always a disciplined
and positive person (an attribute which he attributes
to his parents and a wonderful upbringing), Mark realized
that to continue producing the art which was so important
to him would require a higher resolve on all fronts.
He carefully follows an extensive drug regimen prescribed
at Thomas Street, and began studying Buddhist philosophy.
Practicing
Buddhism's tenet to be one with nature, Coyle's
favorite art subjects became flowers, landscapes, and
portraits. In describing this work, the articulate Coyle
says, "Most of my work has been realism dealing with
light and color.... my subject matter is usually on
the more positive side." He explains that he began drawing
flowers after Bob died. "Working on them was the only
thing that removed my depression for a time," he says.
Bob had loved flowers and planted Mark's small courtyard
garden. So Bob's flowers bloom outside, in pots scattered
throughout Mark's studio--and on Mark's light-filled
pastel canvases, and now on hundreds of posters and
T-shirts for the Bayou City Art Festival.
The Bayou City
Art Festival Memorial Park is presented by the Art Colony
Association, FridaySunday, March 2426, 10 a.m.6 p.m.
Twelve local charities will benefit from the festival's
$7 adult entrance fee including the AIDS Foundation Houston,
Steven's House, and the Bering Omega Community Service
Foundation.
Anne
H. Roberts is a Houston writer and photographer who
was formerly editor of ArtScene.
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