Still life paintings of vibrant animal characters made from rescued materials, form the distinct style of Suffolk based artist Mark Ward. His upcoming solo exhibition at Babylon Gallery is entitled ‘Birds, Beasts and Even More Bendy Stuff’, and opens on Wednesday 1st May 2024.
When he left teaching Art and Design to produce his own work, Mark chose to paint things he likes. Having lived in East Africa, he loved the animals, the gardens, and the big leafy tropical plants. Struggling to invent a complex arrangement of leaves, he decided to make them from paper to gauge the effects of light and shadow. This was an intuitive process for him having trained as a product designer, but he describes the moment he shone a light on these paper leaves as a revelation.
With a ‘black box’ arrangement on the wall of his studio, Mark uses paper, string, clay and
all sorts of rescued items to make plants, birds and animals. He then paints these vibrant wildlife scenes emulating the style of late 17th- and 18th-century Dutch Still Life paintings.
This exhibition will include animals and scenes that can be found right outside the doors of Babylon Gallery.
Mark has spent a lot of his life around the rivers of East Anglia and has painted many swans. One particular painting called ‘Family Swansemble’ shows two swans and a cygnet, and gives the impression of being right on the river…
“…It is the relationship between the three swans that creates the intrigue, and for that you have to create your own story,” says Mark Ward about ‘Family Swansemble’,
“This I hope is true for all my pictures.”
Birds, Beasts and Even More Bendy Stuff is on from Wednesday 1st May at Babylon
Gallery until Sunday 2nd June.
Babylon Gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday, 12pm to 4pm with free entry.
Press release from Babylon ARTS
