HIS FATHER WAS A PRIEST, AND HIS FATHER'S FATHER WAS A PRIEST, BUT MARK KIRYLUK found his bliss as a photographer. Whether his subjects lived in Hollywood or under a Denver bridge, his mission has been to show “people are beautiful no matter what condition they’re in.”
Son of an Air Force chaplain stationed in locales as far-flung as Japan, he ended up back in Denver, attending South High for a year before graduating from Aurora Central in 1965 and enrolling at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. “My dad was a priest (in the Eastern Orthodox Church), my dad’s dad was a priest, and I was destined to be a priest,” he says.
“So I was a seminarian for a year before I realized it was not meant to be. My parents were stationed in Germany so I high-tailed it over for summer break, intending to return and enroll in an arts school like Cooper Union.”
While in Germany he discovered the Bauhaus-influenced Werkkunstschule (arts and crafts school) in Wiesbaden, where he studied maleri (painting). “They were very firm and regimented. You didn’t do just drawing, you also did architectural renderings and mechanical drawings, all taught in German. I took night German classes but my German was still absolutely terrible. But all my friends in class knew English enough that I didn’t have any problems getting the information I needed.”
Under the mentorship of a professor, artist Oskar Kolb, he developed his painting technique and style. “Even though he spoke absolutely no English and I spoke nothing in German, we had a common language. I think art has no barriers.”
Returning stateside in 1969, Kiryluk enrolled at the Paier School of Art in Hamden, Conn., studying under celebrated artists such as Deane Keller (one of the original “Monuments Men” featured in the movie of the same name – who took up the task of finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally vital items before their intended destruction by Hitler during WWII), Ken Davies and Rudolph Zallinger. Drafted in 1970, he enrolled in the U.S. Air Force. “I was really tormented,” he says. “The Vietnam War was in full swing. My dad suggested I enlist; I think he was trying to protect me. I got my basic at Lackland Air Force Base and took what they call a ‘bypass test’ in photography. I got sent to Lowry for OJT (on-the-job training) in photography which ended up being a four-year stint photographing everything from car accidents to generals, all in the States, as it turned out.”
Following his release, Kiryluk continued to paint while landing a job as staff photographer with the Denver-based Catholic Register. Over the next six years he traveled with the Register, photographing Pope John Paul II on his visits to Mexico City and Washington, DC, and scenes of human suffering in developing countries. “We did a story on the arrival of the Vietnamese when they were coming to the United States as refugees and I photographed a woman who had a little child with just a jacket on, no pants, and ran it on the front page of the paper. We competed with the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News for Colorado Press Association journalism awards. I took first place one year for a photograph I’d taken of a woman on the street in Mexico City resting on her belongings.”
In 1980, he decided to try his hand at freelance photography and soon picked up clients as diverse as Central City Opera, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Wells Fargo Banking, Kaiser Permanente, Gates Rubber, and Chrysler Corporation. Whether photographing Hollywood celebrities or Denver’s homeless, Kiryluk prides himself on celebrating the unique dignity of each individual.
He began photographing homeless people as part of a newspaper series. “We went downtown early to the Speer Boulevard viaduct, climbed up, and found this guy still sleeping with a little tin tray beside him like you get in the military. I remember thinking, if I had to survive, could I do that? Probably not.”
Drawn to those living under the mainstream radar, he began visiting the viaduct to shoot photos and discovered a variety of characters inhabiting the streets in one way or another. “There were these four punk kids on those tiny bikes. One of them said, ‘We could beat you up and steal your camera.’ And he was right. There was no place to run. I said, ‘I don’t think you really want to do that, do you?’ As I talked to them I realized they were really nice kids, just putting on this tough façade.”
For a series on street gangs, Kiryluk hung out at a 7/11 where gang members parked their lowriders. “I never pushed myself on anybody, never made trouble. I always tried to be kind. A few gang members were really tough and didn’t want any pictures and I said fine. They said, this is our world, not yours. You’re on the other side of the street. I really took that to heart, and I thought: you’re right.”
For the most part, his respectful approach built trust. “I found that when I photograph people on the street I never use a long lens or telephoto to hide and shoot. I walk right up to them and I’m always using a normal lens which means I have to be close to them. I never photograph them in a degrading manner. I always felt there’s a certain honor to every face, a commitment to their life, whether we agree with it or not. I wanted to show that people are beautiful regardless of what condition they’re in.”
The approach has served him well with subjects at all extremes of the human-condition spectrum, including celebrities such as William Barrett, John Updike, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, Jimmy Stewart, and Rosemary Clooney. “Frankie Valli was visiting the DCPA one time and they said, he doesn’t want any photographs. But I asked him at the end of the performance if he would mind if I got just a couple shots with him and the two sponsors and he agreed. I took three or four and he said, ‘That’s more than two…’ – but he was smiling.”
He got to know actress Betty White while photographing her for the Morris Animal Foundation. “She’s on the board and at board meetings she likes to draw cute, little doggies on scraps of paper. At the end of the meetings they were just going to be thrown out and I would just casually pick them up and put them in my camera case. One time in Boston we were waiting for a bus taking us to a yacht in Boston Harbor and I sat down with her for a minute and told her I had a confession to make, how I always felt bad about stealing her drawings. At the end of the bus ride she came up and handed me the drawing of a little dog that said: ‘To Mark, From Betty.’ We had some really nice communication at other assignments after that. I sent her an invitation to my show a while back with a little note just to say hi. A couple weeks later I was having a bad day, a really bad day, and sure enough, there’s a hand-written letter from Betty recalling those times fondly, sending me good thoughts.”
Today semi-retired, Kiryluk has good and bad days as he continues to struggle with multiple sclerosis. “I worked with the MS Society here for 15 years, and then all of a sudden I’m 50 years old and having these surges of numbness, and they eventually discovered MS. It ended my world for a while. All the running around I used to do downtown, climbing up on things, I just can’t do anymore. But I have clients like Wells Fargo Private Client Services downtown who hire me to do portraits for their website, and they’ve started sending people to my house for individual portraits now.”
And he’s still working with the Central City Opera, where he’s handled production photography for the past 20 years. “I keep thinking the swan song is coming up this year because I have carpal tunnel really bad in my hands. And it’s exhausting, because I have to go shoot at night and get home at 9:30 or 10 and then work for two more hours to download and bring some degree of sanity to all the pictures. I shoot the first dress (rehearsal). It’s complicated, with all these people making decisions about which pictures to use, and they have to be ready to go online the next morning. But nobody takes me seriously when I say I’m ready to retire, and I really just take it all one day at a time.”
A retrospective of Kiryluk’s photography, Through my Eyes, Through the Years, runs through September at ABC Custom Framing, 2550 S. Colorado Blvd.
“This is also a celebration of the gallery. It was established in 1969 and gradually got away from any artwork being shown and became just a frame shop. Now the two owners want to get back to showing art. I’ve selected 80 photographs highlighting my work with the homeless, Denver neighborhoods, the famous. I’ve got shots of traveling in the USSR and China. I’m inviting every photographer I know, friends, acquaintances. My whole career since 1980 has been word of mouth. I’ve never sent out a flyer or fancy mailing, never did a website. All the people I’ve met and photographed in my life, rich and poor, have been just marvelous. I really, really love what I do."
