Mason Akers

I  started painting when I was 15 and knew right away that this was my vocation. I am largely self-taught, although I attended Kansas University (BFA) and Cornell (MFA) for formal art education. After Cornell I stayed in New York for a decade working for Tom Otterness, Takashi Murakami and Bjarne Melgaard. Working in a major studio, even a contemporary one, is exhausting and exhilarating and this decade was well spent developing and honing my techniques. 

This formative experience defined me as a painter rather than an artist. The difference is utterly central to my work because this is my job which requires hard work and an unrelenting dedication to technique and quality.  Unlike an artist, my inspiration is the old masters whose example I follow by using their achievements and approach as a daily guide. Like them, my job as a painter is to serve my patron and the subjects in my portraits by applying everything I have learned from the study and practice of replicating old masters.

I now live and work from my home in Potomac, Maryland in a far more peaceful studio accompanied by my two cats who are so fascinated by work that they can watch it all day. When not painting, I find my weekly newsletter greatly rewarding as I share my thoughts in the hope of providing historical context for the legacy of the old masters and the value they still offer us today.