Mark Shryock was born in Tacoma Washington, on February 17, 1959. Mark’s father had been drafted into the army at the time and returned home to Joplin, Missouri with Mark and his Mother six weeks later. Mark grew up in the Ozark Mountains close to nature and developed a love of nature that would stay with him his entire life.  This love of nature would lead Mark to express the creativity of nature in his art as well as create landscape art combined with ecological restoration work.

After a series of mystical experiences in the 1980s, Mark would complete an MA studying spirituality and creativity and was a Ph.D. fellow at Pondicherry University studying nature writings and Indian spirituality. He also lived and work as a professor and educational consultant in Asia while simultaneously exploring Asian forms of art and spirituality. Mark was a professor in several countries. Mark worked in India helping to create art and spiritually centered international schools in India. It was there that his daughter Tara was born. IN addition to this, Mark also worked with the Prime Minister’s office in Bangladesh creating national educational programs. Mark is an international lecturer, an honoree professor at The School of Ancient Wisdom, in Bangalore India, and social justice writer, and author of a spiritual ecology book. Mark left Academia in 2018 and now works as an artist full time. His work contains strong mystical themes of nature and creativity.

Mark now lives on Black Rock Mountain, in the Appalachians of northern Georgia, with his artist wife, Joan Shryock and his daughter Tara.