Mark Roeder, 2020 Artist in Residence, Exhibition.

The Theodore Payne Foundation welcomes Mark Roeder as our 2020 Artist in Residence. For the residency, Roeder produced a suite of 12 paintings of California native plants from in and around his home garden. Accompanying the exhibition is PLANT-CARE AS SELF-CARE, a special seed mix developed by the artist and the TPF Seed Program, and a hand-printed scarf based on a painting made during the residency. Both items will be available through the foundation store.

From the artist:

During this time of our quarantined, closed-down, and physically-distanced everyday lives, sometimes the ordinary-ness of our day-to-day can overwhelm. Concerns are ever present – Is the air safe to breathe? What are the Particulate Matter numbers today?  Are you wearing a mask? What’s your viral load? During this time, I look to something I can understand, maintain, try to control. I look to the garden. 

Organisms living together – both human and non-human – this is our collective ecology. Current circumstance dictates living in our immediate surroundings with our attention on what we can readily use and touch. I recognize my time in the garden is a privilege. This is time not equally afforded to all Californians. Together we may long to expand our outlook beyond this confinement and see the vastness of what is right-in-front-of-us: regions of mountains, foothills and lowhills, valleys, coast plains, meadowlands, and deserts. The unique qualities of these surroundings – this is our collective ontology. This unifies us. Anyone here has this “place” – this right-here-right-now – in common.

Mark Roeder (b. 1974, Whittier, CA) received his BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2000. An artist, teacher, and amateur gardener and birdwatcher, Roeder lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2019, he mounted his third exhibition with Michael Benevento gallery in Los Angeles. He’s exhibited widely in solo and group presentations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Minneapolis, London, Toronto, and Tokyo. Roeder was an Artist-in-Residence for the National Park Service in 2014 at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area.