Fine art paintings and prints of New Mexico and Texas landscapes and portraits have been my passion for many decades. This passion is and has been expressed as a Fine Artist, Workshop Instructor, Art Coach, Inventor, and Author. I attempt to intensify and exaggerate stories I want to tell in the portraiture and landscapes I paint. As Hunter Ingalls, art educator and art critic, stated in a newspaper show critique, “Mike Mahon is an artist with a clear command of both the oil and pastel media... (his) works reveal an ability to single out simple, unassuming details for special emphasis, elevating the imagery into radiant, dream-like originality.”
My love of art grew naturally as he was raised on the flat plains of West Texas as well as in mountainous Northern New Mexico. Both were vastly different, yet strangely complementary places. My broad Southwestern subject matter is an honest outworking of my family’s roots. My grandfather moved his family from Fort Worth, Texas, to Taos, New Mexico, in 1913, to be the towns’ only pharmacist, living next to Kit Carson’s residence and the one-time Stables Gallery. My grandfather sometimes bartered his prescriptions for the paintings of struggling artists, who were part of the original Taos art colony, and my artist-great uncle, Ben Hopkins, was an artist/gallery owner and one time mayor of Taos. From 1958 until I graduated from Texas Tech University in 1971 with a Fine Art degree, I spent most of my summers in the Red River/Taos County area, but never away from my sketch books. My life was as a commercial artist and illustrator for twenty-eight years which prepared me for the full-time fine art career I now enjoy in Rio Rancho, NM, just south of Santa Fe. In 1978, I established his own art business in Amarillo which I expanded to include advertising art, commercial printing/typesetting, professional photography, film animation, industrial film making, and a photo processing lab. I have studied with Clarence Kincaid, Ben Konis, Kim English, Judi Betts, John Budicin, and Albert Handell. My experience in every area of the art business has helped me excell in pastel, watercolor, oil, and photography. I am also the inventor of a revolutionary pastel management & plein air painting system, Mike Mahon’s Pastel Porter™. I was featured in the North Light Books’ publication, 100 Ways to Paint Portraits and Figures, along with 99 other artists from around the world. I was honored with many First Place and Best of Show awards for my work including Best of Show at the Plein Air Painters of New Mexico 2014 Santa Fe Plein Air Painting Festival. I have published two books on art. “Art Principles: Control Your Painting Process & Conquer Your Fear of Failure” is a 123 page book the describes the principles and procedures he uses and teaches in his workshops. It also includes a personal account of my journey as an artist. My second book, “Painting the Land of Enchantment” is a 189 page book exhibiting 25 years of my landscape painting of New Mexico. Both books are available on Amazon.com. I judge national and regional art shows and teach workshops. Working in oil and pastel, I teache a process rather than a technique oriented method. Students consistently rave over their results.I am represented by Reserve Gallery-Amarillo, TX. I am a signature member of the Pastel Society of America (PSA), the Plein Air Painters of New Mexico (PAPNM), and the Pastel Society of New Mexico (PSNM).
