Mark Kuhn
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I spent my childhood looking at the photographs in National Geographic, and both my love of photography and my love of travel came out of those pages. It took twenty years in IT and my father's sudden death before I finally stopped postponing the work I actually wanted to do. Photography is my real work now, and everything else I do supports it.
I've chased stories through my lens alongside my wife and travel partner, Kris, across 37 countries and six continents, to a graffiti tunnel in London, a courtyard in Dresden where the drainpipes play music when it rains, and a house in the Emirates that the desert has been swallowing for decades. I live and work in Minneapolis, where a wet night on the Stone Arch Bridge is as good a subject as anywhere in the world.
What I'm after is rarely the postcard view. I'm drawn to the things most people walk past, the painted wall, the drainpipe, the tunnel everyone is hurrying through, and to color loud enough to make somebody stop. I show my work in a fine art booth at art fairs and in gallery exhibitions, I've received multiple Best in Show honors, most recently for “Sands of Time,” and my work is on long-term display at the Elliot Park Hotel in Minneapolis.
When I'm not traveling I serve as Business of Art Director at the Maple Grove Art Center, connecting local artists with businesses willing to give their work a wall. My hope for any image I make is that it takes you somewhere, and better still, that it inspires you to get out there and travel.
The world is too big to stay in one place & life is too short to do just one thing.
Awards & Recognitions
Art Fairs
- Best in Show - Photography – 2025 SoMi Art Fair: Minneapolis, MN
- Best in Show - Photography – 2023 Uptown Art Fair: Minneapolis, MN
- Best in Show – 2022 Arbor Lakes Art Fair: Maple Grove, MN
Gallery Shows and Contests
2026
- Primavera - Plymouth Arts Council
- Best In Show - "Sands of Time"
2025
- Arts North International 30 - Hopkins Art Center - "Swipe Right"
- Advocates Show - Maple Grove Arts Center - "Swipe Right"
- Primavera - Plymouth Arts Council - "Urban Commuter"
2024
- Arts North International 29 - Hopkins Art Center - "Fagradalsfjalll 2021"
- Photography Show - Maple Grove Arts Center
- Best in Show “Urban Commuter”
2023
- International Color Awards
- 3rd Place - Honor of Distinction "Maasai Shuka"
- Head On Landscape Awards (@ 3:12 in the Video)
- Semifinalist "Fagradalsjfall - 2021"
- Animal Beings - Praxis Gallery
- Honorable Mention “How's my Hair”
- Black and White Spider Awards "How's my Hair"
- #NewVisions2023 - Texas Photographic Society "Maasai Shuka"
- Landscapes - Praxis Gallery “Pilgrims at Alto de Perdon”
2022
- Back to the Basics - National Camera
- First Place - Line Category “DC Tower”
- Honorable Mention - Shape Category “Lorenzkirche”
- Honorable Mention - Color Category “Maasai Shuka”
- The Shape of Things - Praxis Gallery “Monte Palace Stairway”
- Photography Show - Maple Grove Arts Center Best in Show “The Orloj”