While actually born in Washington, D.C., Mark Susinno grew up in the Maryland suburbs of the nation's capital until moving to Brooklyn, N.Y., to attend Pratt Institute on a four-year, full-tuition merit scholarship. Upon graduation with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting in 1979, Mark went to work as a torch-cutter and truck driver for a scrap metal and dismantling firm in Brooklyn. A two-month long cross-country road trip led Mark to leave NYC for Maryland in 1982, where he continued to dabble in artistic pursuits while working at various non-art-related jobs. Working as a fabricator of bullet-proof doors in 1985, Mark won the 1986 Maryland Trout Stamp contest and decided to concentrate on art professionally. Since then, he has specialized in painting underwater depictions of freshwater and saltwater gamefish and in scenes of fly fishermen pursuing their obsession. Along the way, Mark has added twenty more fishing stamps to his list of credits, including the 1991 First-of-State Pennsylvania Trout/Salmon Stamp and the 2005 First-of-State Texas Freshwater Stamp. Since 1987, Mark's limited edition prints have been published by Wild Wings, L.L.C. Of his own approach to painting, Mark says: "I'm a fisherman and that fact affects how I approach making paintings of game fish. I enjoy suggesting the sense of light and space of the shallow-water aquatic environment, but I also feel the need to present the fish themselves such that they are recognizable to the average fisherman, who is most familiar with how a fish looks when it is out of water. When painting fish (either in oils or acrylics), my main focus is on creating an interesting abstract arrangement of shapes, colors, textures, and patterns, which I hope will also convey a more or less convincing impression of an underwater scene." His love of fishing (and need to gather reference material) has led Mark to Alaska after Pacific salmon, trout, char. sheefish, grayling, and pike; Labrador for big brookies; Scotland and many North American locales for trout; Florida for tarpon, bonefish, snook, seatrout, redfish, & 'cuda; the east coast for stripers, bluefish, albies, & dolphin; and too many places to mention for his beloved smallmouth bass. Mark is an avid fly fisherman, and fly fishes in both freshwater and saltwater. Special Achievements: • FISHING STAMP DESIGNS MARYLAND TROUT STAMP - 1986,1990,1995 CHESAPEAKE BAY SPORTFISHING STAMP - 1989 INDIANA TROUT/SALMON STAMP - 1988,1989,1991 KENTUCKY TROUT STAMP - 1989,1990,1993 DELAWARE TROUT STAMP - 1989 ILLINOIS SALMON STAMP - 1990 NEVADA TROUT STAMP - 1990 PENNSYLVANIA TROUT/SALMON STAMP - 1991,2000 OREGON WILD TROUT STAMP - 1993 TEXAS SALTWATER STAMP - 1994,2003 SOUTH CAROLINA SALTWATER STAMP - 1997 NEW HAMPSHIRE ATLANTIC SALMON STAMP - 1997 TEXAS FRESHWATER STAMP - 2005 Publications: • Magazines Art of Angling Journal Gray's Sporting Journal Sporting Classics Field & Stream Sports Afield Fishing World Fly Fisherman IGFA World Record Yearbook • Books Lefty Kreh's ADVANCED FLY FISHING TECHNIQUES Lefty Kreh's ULTIMATE GUIDE TO FLY FISHING Patrick Seslar's WILDLIFE PAINTING STEP-BY-STEP Alan J. Robinson's ODE TO BASS & TROUT Organization Membership: • Society of Animal Artists • Trout Unlimited • Coastal Conservation Association • Mason-Dixon Outdoor Writers Association • American Mensa