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Mark Cole Greene was born Dec. 19, 1955 in Abilene, Texas, the second of Texas writer A. C. Greene and Betty Greene's four children. Due to a minor birth injury, Mark was developmentally delayed. Childhood tests predicted that Mark, "would never be able to read, be coordinated enough to ride a bicycle, nor be able to distinguish colors." Far surpassing these expectations, Mark has "worn out three bicycles" and is an avid reader. His art stands as testament of his ability to distinguish colors.
When Mark was five years old the Greene's moved to Dallas, and Mark began attending the first special education classes offered in that city. After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School, Mark worked for a grocery store chain for several years but was forced to leave when the store came under new management. He then relocated to a Texas Department of Mental Health Mental Retardation facility in Keane, near Cleburne, where he resided for six years. In March 1995 he moved to a private group home in Corsicana, but returned to Cleburne the following year.
As is the case with many self-taught artists, Mark Greene began making art after experiencing a series of great personal losses in his life. Within a brief time span, he experienced the death of his paternal grandparents in an automobile accident, the death of his maternal grandmother, his own mother's death, and the tragic double murder of a close high school friend and her mother. Within a year of these deaths Greene began make art, probably as a way to express his deepest inner feelings, to deal with the great sense of loss he felt, and to document his unique views of the world. His father believes that making art was his "attempt to repossess or reproduce a world that was so shockingly denied him." He stated that, "Mark's emergence as an artist was very unexpected and very sudden, [and it was] as much a surprise to Mark as it was to me."
In the MHMR facility where he lives, Greene participates in routine activities, but is allowed two days each week to devote completely to his art. His other interests include listening to classical music, which he does while he is drawing; traveling to visit his bother and sister in New York City; and reading.
For fifteen years Mark Greene's father and stepmother, Judy, collected his work. Eventually they were guided by friends to the Webb Gallery in Waxahachie where it was first exhibited. Spirited Journeys is the first museum exhibition in which Mark Cole Greene's work has been shown. Greene exemplifies the continuing evolution of self-taught art in Texas. Through the emergence of new artists whose art reflects the changes of popular culture and society, the field experiences constant renewal as we approach the twenty-first century.
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