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Africa Mixed media on canvas 24 x 36 in 1996 Tribute to George Braque Mixed media on canvas 36 x 48 in 1989 Georgia Morning Oil on canvas 24 x 30 in 1984 Africa Mixed media on canvas 24 x 36 in 1996 1/6 ABOUT John Russell, a British American Art Critic, said the average time a viewer looks at a painting in a museum is five seconds. Other researchers have measured the mean viewing time maybe as high as twenty-seven seconds. Neither five or twenty-seven seconds seem much return for a painting that may have taken two hundred hours or even more to render. The length of time someone looks at a museum piece is not likely to affect most of us personally, since only a very small percent of artists will ever have a painting in a museum. I practiced orthopedic surgery for just over thirty-years and looking back it feels like much longer than that. I have been painting for fifty years and looking back it feels more like the blink of an eye – like I'm just beginning to piece together how variations in brush strokes effect the tension in painting. I can still remember what it was like the first time I made color notes on a canvas for an impending impressionistic work. ​ I’m reasonably well-known for my medical inventions in Orthopedics but the exposure of my paintings to the public has been limited. For fifty years I have been happy to paint privately and only show my work to family and friends. Last year I was gathering material to write a “How to Book” on medical innovation. There, staring me in the face, was data showing the relationship between medical device inventions and painting output: four hundred and fifty patents issued; nine companies (eight on medical devices and one pharmaceutical; two of them had IPO); about eight hundred canvases painted; over eight thousands surgeries operated; with all those works, I do not know whether the uptick in device inventions and medicine were affected by the visual art study and my increased number of paintings or the other way around. My wife was fascinated by the possibility that fine art could affect medical work. She has read a number of research papers that have found a similar relationship. This has made my wife more and more enthusiastic about being an advocate for my paintings. So with the increasing popularity of the virtual gallery, we decided to use the online platform to present some of my paintings. Behind each painting, there is usually a personal story. Some paintings recall the vicissitudes of my surgical training, the bad and the good parts. (I did a painting of my internship – one of the bad parts – that took me fifty-two weeks to paint – the same amount of time to do an internship. The painting is of me alone on an icy glacier at night.) On this virtual gallery, we will also introduce guest artists who love paintings as much as I do. Our goal is to showcase the artworks of medical professionals in addition to mine. Through this channel, we are to promote the understanding of art for those interested from an inventor and surgeon’s perspective. We will invite artists who are also medical professionals, to participate in the discussion on the interaction between medicine and art. We hope this site will be a platform not only exhibit selected art works but also help us to explore, demonstrate how art education makes difference among medical professionals. ​ As mentioned at the beginning of this intro, we were told the average time a viewer looks at a painting in a museum is five seconds. Believing or not believing it, I am inviting you to navigate our site to find out where, when and which painting you will lay your eyes on if you have the precious five seconds. I am anxiously looking forward to your feedback. ​ Mark Reiley Learn More

Show Paintings Mark Reiley is a retired Orthopedic Surgeon. He is best known for his medical invention of Kyphoplasty , a procedure that treats the pain caused by osteoporotic spine fracture in the elderly, as well as iFuse, a minimally invasive surgical implant system. Dr. Reiley also founded seven orthopedic device companies (Si-Bone Inc . is the last one he started), two of which went to public with IPO’s and two were sold/acquired by medium-to-large medical companies. His medical inventions have helped thousands of patients to relieve from their pains (i.e., lower back pain) and improved quality of life. During Mark's career, in additional to being a surgeon, he has had over 200 medical device patents issued. In 2008, Dr. Reiley was awarded the Phoenix Lifetime Achievement in Medicine. ​ “I have painted much longer than I practiced medicine.” Dr. Reiley started oil painting when he was in Sardinia Italy for Christmas at age 21. Many decades later, he is still slinging paint onto canvases with brushes or fingers or anything that is handy. “One of my favorite pieces was from 1971 - a view of ‘old Italy’. We lived on a dirt road in the farmland of Sardinia, and everyday farmers would drive their horses down the road sitting on a two wheeled cart. On the way out the back of the cart was empty. On the way back home (eight hours later) there would be a few pieces of firewood. To say the farmer was driving was a bit of a misnomer. He held the reins, but the horse was taking him home.” That’s the vivid memory Dr. Reiley would enjoy talking to family and friends. “I spent one hundred hours trying to capture the rickety wagon, the farmer’s job and the horse’s job. Gamely I picked up a brush and very few colors. I was a rank beginner and tried continuously for 100 hours.” Back then, he knew nothing about color or brush strokes or composition, all he knew was he wanted to paint an atmospheric piece with a dead tree, a calm horse and an expressionless Sardinia driver who seemed to know where his world stood. Many years later, Dr. Reiley became a well-known orthopedic surgeon and inventor, his love of painting stays with him. Dr. Reiley received his MD from George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington DC. He now splits his time with his wife between Washington DC and Florida. Besides his paintings, he writes. He has finished and published two novels, The Corsican Dove and The Beijing Duck, both under a pseudonym.

Impressionism Influenced Abstract Nowism Middle Ageism