As a high school student, Mark Nelson was awarded the prestigious National Scholastics Art Scholarship, which he used to attend the Colorado Institute of Art. Graduating with Best Portfolio honors, Nelson earned a living as an illustrator working for clients including Coors, University of Denver, The Miami Herald, 5280 Magazine, and legendary photographer James Balog.

Nelson has since shifted his artistic focus to painting abstract geometric forms - natural as well as structural - in pursuit of what he terms "a contemporary sublime". Nelson's work has been placed in a number of prominent regional and national collections and has been displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver