BIO

Mark Hewko (b. Astoria, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist working across abstract mural painting, sculpture, and photography. Raised in New York City by Eastern European immigrant parents, he grew up surrounded by Ukrainian folk art, textiles, and graphic traditions, alongside the visual language of New York City’s graffiti culture in the 1980s. These early influences sparked a lasting fascination with typography, pattern, and structure.
Hewko studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where his approach to form and spatial composition was shaped by architect and professor Herbert Glenn Bennett, and later at Queens College under civil rights artist Benny Andrews, reinforcing a belief in art as a public, socially engaged practice. Early encounters with Jean-Michel Basquiat's street art and epigrams further affirmed abstraction as an accessible and powerful visual language in shared urban space.
His work has been exhibited internationally in museums, galleries, and public environments, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Beyond Bollywood exhibition in Washington, D.C., and site-specific installations in Italy and Argentina. After living in New York for over four decades, Hewko relocated to Southern California, where large-scale mural work became a central focus of his practice. Rooted in typography and abstraction, his work bridges design and fine art, translating visual language into immersive, site-responsive experiences.

STATEMENT

My work explores abstraction as a structured visual language—one that emerges from typography, geometry, and rhythm. I am interested in how familiar forms can be transformed into systems that feel both ordered and intuitive, legible yet open-ended. Working across murals, sculpture, and architectural-scale compositions, I approach each piece as a balance between intentional design and instinctive decision-making.
At the core of my practice is what I refer to as Geometric Harmonics: a method of composition where repetition, proportion, and color establish continuity and visual rhythm. Letterforms serve as a starting point, but are gradually abstracted into pure form, allowing language to dissolve into pattern and structure. These compositions are designed to operate at scale, offering clarity and moments of pause within complex visual environments.
I am drawn to the tension between structure and freedom—between systems that feel grounded and forms that invite contemplation. Whether encountered in a gallery, on a wall, or within the urban landscape, my work aims to engage viewers through balance, cohesion, and spatial awareness. Rather than functioning as decoration, the work is meant to be experienced as visual architecture: something that shapes perception, slows the eye, and creates space for reflection.