BIOGRAPHY
Mark Barnett was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1995. He graduated from University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, in 2018 with BA (Honours) in Fine Art Painting. He is now a practising artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Creating art is an innate part of my life. I am an interdisciplinary mix-media artist and much of my work is an intuitive process, which is focused on the spontaneous expressive gestural impetus of media and paint; which uses my entire body. My work is driven by a strong interest in Ecocentric Ecology, Mahayana Buddhism and Phenomenology. Each brush stroke aims at manifesting the meditative respiration of ‘Now’ into physical and artistic action. Thus arriving in an intuitive revelation of the specific, simultaneous existence of ‘Being’ and the world.
“The role of the artist is to become part of nature […] In the instant, there is a coincidence of events – wind blowing, grass growing, brush strokes appearing. All there is, is in the instant […] painting in the instant can be compared to the meditative state in which the mind is open to its vastness. It is the experience of being at one […] painting in the instant is the direct manifestation of the unknown through the painter as the instrument. The painter disappears in the instant, and reappears in the painting.” Gordon-Onslow Ford
QUALIFICATIONS
Art and Design (BETC), Long Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge.
BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art.
RESIDENCIES
Earth, Landscape, and Ecology – 2016 at Artscape Gibraltar Point, Toronto, Canda.
1 Month Painting/Drawing Residency – 2017 at Sachaqa Centro De Arte, San Roque De Cumbaza, Peru.
1 Month Art Residency – 2018 at DÔ-SÔ at Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan.
AWARDS
Shortlisted for the Art Solo Award – 2018
