Representing Mark Warren

Mark Warren uses bright colours and experimental textures to create quirky, poetic figures and animals, drawing on memories of a childhood in Africa.  Mark is constantly searching and experimenting with different styles and mediums.  This reflects his need for change and could be compared to one of the many African animals - the chameleon.

Mark has a primitive and modernist aesthetic with inspiration from artists such as Paul Klee and Karel Appel, for colour and shape, and Jean Dubuffet for his use of thick impasto to create rich layered textures.  Layering and texture is strong in Mark's work, and can be seen in his use of collage, sand and thick paint.  Mark believes that like a scar on a person, texture creates memories and provides character to a painting.

Bringing ideas from everyday experiences as well as from the lyrical jazz music that he loves, Mark begins his canvases by covering them with an abundance of paint.  Texture comes later, with sand or bitumen and plenty of compound medium to fuse these materials. Mark layers shapes and colours to create his characters, finally giving outline to them by filling in the negative space with flat colours; the result being vibrant art with depth and vivaciousness.  Mark is now experimenting more and more with abstraction and the use of masking tape in his layering, creating an exciting step of uncovering the unknown and also producing a collage of paint in the process.

Commissions are welcome. 

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