TERRY MARKS is an internationally exhibited, award-winning painter, printmaker, & tattooist, who plays a bit of ukulele on the side. She fell into acting work by accident when her name was passed to a casting director in search of real female tattooists, and got the coveted 3 SAG waivers her first time out.

From an Israeli, Russian & Polish background, Terry & was born and raised in New York City. As a teenager she met painter Joseph Wolins, known for his work during the WPA period, who became her first art teacher and mentor.

After a spell of hitch-hiking, she lived in San Francisco, where she worked as a short-order cook flipping eggs, & as a pushcart vendor selling live lobsters. A year later she went to London, England, where she remained for 9 chilly and damp years. In London she went to art college*, lived in an illegal squat, & worked as a bartender, first in Waterloo Station, pulling pints for football hooligans, and in the ICA**, mixing cocktails for gallery, theatre & film events.
       
She returned to NYC to again experience sunshine in the winter. In her spare time she completed her MFA in painting†, and founded New York Stuckism‡, a local chapter of the international ReModernist art group.

Terry first heard of Stuckism in early 2001 & immediately found herself amongst kindred spirits. She has since exhibited with various configurations of the group on three continents (including the Liverpool Biennial: Stuckist Punk Victorian), & coined the now world-famous & often quoted phrase:

"We all choose to be painters, but not as if rock & roll, television, cars, cinema, jazz, and the whole 20th century never happened. We’re saying, 'Let’s use paint to describe our lives now.' ”

Her painting "This is not an Installation" gave the title to her solo exhibit at the Koi Gallery in 2004. The invitation card read:

• no religious icons submerged in or smeared with human waste products
• no heaps of rotting compost in plexiglass cases
• no taxidermy barnyard animals in formaldehyde
• no desecrated flags
• warning: this exhibition contains figurative narratives and representations of recognizable objects

More of Terry's views on Stuckist art and on painting in general can be found in Carol Strickland's comprehensive interview here, and on the links page, Stuckism section. Her artwork is in numerous private collections in the USA & UK.

*  at the Central/St.Martin’s School of Art where she received a BA Hons
    for fine art printmaking
†  the Graduate School of Figurative Art at the New York Academy of Art
** Institute of Contemporary Art, London
‡  for more information, see Stuckism on the links page

 Terry & a tiger in the Museum of Natural History, NYC