Mark Dunst is a Los Angeles–area abstract painter. His layered, improvisational paintings build an ecology of marks and tensions that accumulate without resolving into fixed meaning.

After earning his BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Dunst built a career as an award-winning designer and creative director. Returning to the studio marked a shift toward a slower, more open-ended kind of discovery—one guided by process rather than outcomes.

This way of working gave him space  to explore a deeper orientation toward the entangled nature of things. For Dunst, painting is a way of staying  with what can’t be reduced or explained away—what shifts, complicates, or refuses to settle. His paintings invite the viewer to slow down and remain in that space, where something quieter can happen. Not answers, but a chance to dwell—to stay present with possibility and notice what’s still unfolding.

Dunst’s work is held in public and private collections across the U.S. and internationally. He has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the Pacific Northwest, including the Artworks Northwest Biennial. He was selected by Saatchi Art as one of the “24 Artists to Collect in 2024,” and his work has appeared on SFMOMA’s social media, in online publications, and in ArtFolio, an annual survey of contemporary abstraction. Dunst is represented by LAURA VINCENT DESIGN & GALLERY in Portland, OR.