Mark Loughney

Philadelphia native, Mark Loughney, is a self-taught draftsman and painter. Much of the artist’s early creative work was produced late at night within the confines of a prison cell, with the resulting work reflecting the spontaneous flow of thoughts occurring in these challenging periods. “I started drawing as a toddler, but didn’t really get serious until about 2014, when I was 37.  I had been in prison for two years and it was a crossroads situation. One path was doom, the other was working toward building a purpose for my life and to contribute to the world in some positive way. Art was the means through which I felt I had a shot at that.” Mark’s thoughts from those times continue to influence both his drawings and paintings today, beyond the confines of incarceration. After serving 10 years in prison, Mark was released in July of 2022. 

Mark has participated in several solo and group art exhibitions, with his most notable being Pyrrhic Defeat: A Visual Study Of Mass Incarceration. This project features 771 original portraits of incarcerated individuals created by the artist during his time in prison. Pyrrhic Defeat debuted at MoMA PS1 in the award winning exhibition Marking Time: Art In The Age Of Mass Incarceration. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Forbes, ArtForum, The Paris Review, Hyperallergic, and NPR, among many other media outlets. Alongside his artistic journey, Loughney is also a 2023 Art For Justice Fellow and a 2023 Mural Arts Philadelphia Reimagining Reentry Fellow.