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Art Prizes
Nat West Art Prize Shortlisted 1987
Hunting Art Prize 1998 /winner 2000/2003
Discerning Eye Competition 1998/1999/2001/Founders Prize 2014/2015/2016/2017/2020/Mentors prize 2019
Laing Art Prize 1999
R A Summer show 2001/2003/2006/2020
BP Portrait Award 2000/2001/commended
2002
Threadneedle Art Prize 2010
Lynne Stainer’s Art Prize 2013
Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2016/2019/First prize 2020
Wells Art Contemporary 2018
Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2020
Group shows
Andelli Art “Figures and faces” 2018 “Perfectly Formed” 2019 Christmas show 2020
Flowers Gallery “Small is Beautiful” 2019/2020
Long and Ryle Christmas show 2020
One Man shows
Beaux Art 1990/1992 and 1998
Long and Ryle 2000/2002/2004/2005/2007/2008/2010/2015
Paul Smith Westbourne Grove 2019
“Mark looks long and hard and with great clarity at his subjects but manages somehow to suggest the immediacy of a glance. Scattered objects carry weight, not symbolic but emotional, so that what seems incidental becomes telling.”
“Then there’s the light. He’s interested in it, not just as a vital source, but as an additional character, which, again makes his paintings so present. He captures the fleeting moment the light hits the glass or face and makes it vivid and integral; alive.”
Tamsin Oglesby
“Art has always defined me: I would draw like other people would read.”
The son of an RAF fighter pilot, Mark was born in Amman, Jordan in 1961 and sent to boarding school in Berkshire aged seven. It was here that his passion for art was ignited and encouraged.
“For me, art at school was an instinctive means of expression and communication,” he says. “It was many years later that I discovered I’m dyslexic.”
Mark went on to take a foundation course at the Cambridge College of Art and Technology, specialising in printmaking, followed by a degree in illustration at Brighton, graduating in 1984.
Some of his first commissions were for major publishers such as Penguin, Random House and Heinemann. He created book covers for Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Aldous Huxley and PG Wodehouse as well as many others. He also designed posters for the National Theatre production of Wind in the Willows and record covers for Chris Rhea.
During his 15 years as an illustrator Mark continued to feed his need to paint and began showing at galleries in Bath and London.
“In 1999 I was ecstatic to have a portrait accepted for the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery,” he recalls. “I had another accepted the following year and received a commendation in 2002. This led to my first portrait commission and marked the start of my career as a portrait painter.”
Mark continues to exhibit widely both as a solo artist and at carefully chosen group shows. He is immensely proud to have been recognised with a number of respected art prizes, most recently winning a first in the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2020.
Sarah Shephard
