Mark Oldland is an autistic adult who resides in Hillsborough, NJ. As an artist, he strives to positively promote the abilities of autistic individuals by using his artwork to promote inclusion for autistic individuals and the neurodivergent community.

Mark received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in the Spring of 2000. Mark’s early works were heavily influenced by his fascination and interaction with moving water. As a result, his art career took a non-traditional turn when he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard in order to further his understanding of moving water. His service time included patrols on the Bering Sea and South Pacific while he continued to paint and draw the impacts of the environment he was observing. As a service disabled veteran Mark now incorporates these experiences with his autistic identity into his artwork. This atypical path has pushed his artwork outward from his early comfort zone of analytical abstraction to explore his relationship with the representational world which, as an autistic individual, Mark finds abstract. This newfound range from one extreme to the other is the basis for his current art exploration, wherein he creates artwork to illustrate his “Spectrum” to the world. Through this work, he hopes to enlighten the public about the many abilities autistic people have to offer.