The latest exhibition at Humphry’s is by local artist Mark Lewis. The exhibition will run from 6th August to 9th September. You can find out a little about Mark on the page below and see a few examples of his work.
MARK LEWIS – A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Mark Lewis is a designer-maker, specialising in silversmithing and jewellery, and also a landscape artist. He has graduate and post-graduate design degrees and worked for a major jewellery and silver manufacturer in London, before establishing his own workshop in 1981.
In 1985 he entered full-time teaching, although he continued to maintain a freelance consultancy. Mark has had a wide-ranging Art and Design teaching career in adult, further and higher education institutions, mostly in London. Until the summer of 2009, he was a Principal Lecturer in the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design at London Metropolitan University. He currently lectures part-time at the Goldsmiths’ Centre in London and was until recently, a part-time lecturer at Birmingham City University and the University of Creative Arts in Surrey.
Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Horners. He is also interested in folklore, especially seasonal customs and traditions and is an active member of the Folklore Society.
In the last twenty years he has actively pursued an interest in the history and practice of landscape painting and drawing. He works with both traditional and digital imaging techniques. Drawing is his greatest artistic passion. He is also interested in the relationship between art and spirituality. Some drawings are generated on an iPad and produced as giclee prints. Marks long-standing interest in lighthouses are reflected in his love of maritime landscapes and the contrasts between manmade structures and the wild and often unpredictable environment of coastal terrain. These places continue to provided powerful inspiration for some of his recent work.
However, Marks current work focuses on expressive and gestural mark-making, responding to the hidden energies and textures in the landscape and is gradually pushing towards semi-abstraction. His latest drawings have celebrated the Essex coast and countryside and a recent solo exhibition of drawings at the Epping Forest Visitor Centre, Chingford, drew inspiration from the drama of light and shade and the sense of mystery they evoke in the forest environs. Mark enjoys the immediacy of working with sketchbooks and is never without one!
Mark is also a public speaker and regularly gives talks on a wide variety of topics including 19-20th Century art and design history, British folklore and lighthouses!
Mark offers private tuition, bespoke workshops and training courses on iPad painting, drawing technique, creativity and design.
Websites:
www.marklewisart.co.uk
www.drawingtheline.org
www.talksfirst.info
Instagram handle: @mlewis342
