Mark S. Kornbluth | Source | Artist at Cavalier Galleries

Born in San Francisco in 1966, Mark Stephen Kornbluth was raised in Montreal, then Cleveland. Since graduating high school, Mark has lived in Toronto (twice), Los Angeles, Westchester County (also twice), and New York City, where he has resided since 2002. While the artist retains a natural wanderlust, the Manhattan skyline—whether seen from land or air—is his touchstone, New York City providing a wellspring of inspiration and an artistic community in which he thrives.

Mark will tell you that he has always had a camera with him, for as long as he can remember, but that for much of his life, he was an artist in search of a medium. As a teen he secured an internship as a production assistant, converted that to an assistant stage manager role through ambition, a keen mind, and an infectious energy, and spent ten years in the theatrical arts—touring Broadway shows around the country, and working in film and television. Mark has studied a range of academic disciplines including art history, literature, psychology, and art therapy. It is no surprise then that his dramatic talents, wandering intellect, and insatiable curiosity find a home in the work of a fine art photographer. At once he is screenwriter, stage manager, director, and producer, an explorer of his world through the lens.

Mark holds an M.F.A. in acting from Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied with such greats as photographer Joel Sternfeld, actor and director Paul Austin, and dancer and choreographer Sara Rudner. His oeuvre spans fine art, commercial, documentary, and event photography. A diverse academic and professional background helps to define his unobtrusive and unique approach to creating images. In his career to date, Mark has photographed dancers, musicians, actors, politicians, writers, and everyday people.

DARK, Mark S. Kornbluth’s series of photographs of Broadway theaters during the pandemic lockdown, represents a new chapter for the artist. When circumstances turned his attention from portraiture and human interactions to desolate streets and shuttered buildings, he became an insightful observer of the presence of absence, of the way that people leave their marks on the urban environment and vice versa, a practiced listener in the silences. Now in 2023, when Times Square is teeming with life once again, Mark still seeks out the lonely hours of night, the interstitial moments, the darkness and the quiet, creating meditative photographs that speak volumes.