Mark Erickson was born in Southern California and completed his education in California, Germany and Italy. He completed his art education at the Academy of Art College and the Art Institute in San Francisco. Erickson has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Orleans. He has collectors in Germany, France, Japan, Italy and across the United States

Erickson concerns himself with transcending the picture plane but in his newest series plays with both flattening the plane and creating abstracted objects which float above. When asked about the origin of the shapes and colors, he refers to them as "melted cartoons". He was influenced by the colors and text baloons of comic books and began to play at abstracting them. He exaggerated the effect, creating paintings in which composition was more important than content. By mixing metallic car paints with oils, he was able to further dramatize the floating elements and let them shine above the blackened plain. The exaggerated spaces in the Erickson paintings give the works a magnificent presence and power.