Mark Stacey
For 35 years, Mark was a book illustrator specialising in military history and bringing prehistoric sites to life.
Recently, he’s turned to painting semi-abstracted landscapes and drawing the human form. He paints mostly in oils or acrylics on board, paper and canvas.
His paintings are inspired by big skies and liminal places – moorland fringes, sacred landscapes, hidden lanes and wilderness – watery, rocky, deserted and ethereal. He uses photos and plein-air sketches as a starting point, and back in the studio allows the paintings to develop intuitively. Mark’s studio is in a barn between St Veep and Lanreath in Cornwall.
At a recent exhibition, Mark described his way of working:
" I began my career in 1987 as a freelance book illustrator, specialising in military history. This work was extremely precise and detail-heavy, requiring extensive research and absolute attention to historical accuracy.
But I’ve always been interested in drawing and painting the figure, and more especially the landscape. My recent focus has been on landscape painting, where I try to invoke the atmosphere of a place with little or no detail – a far cry from my illustration work. The paintings are usually based on real locations, but rather than depicting the precise topography, geography or flora of a place, I try to capture its mood and personality.
I work from sketches, photos and sometimes film, but mainly from imagination and memory."
For 35 years, Mark was a book illustrator specialising in military history and bringing prehistoric sites to life.
Recently, he’s turned to painting semi-abstracted landscapes and drawing the human form. He paints mostly in oils or acrylics on board, paper and canvas.
His paintings are inspired by big skies and liminal places – moorland fringes, sacred landscapes, hidden lanes and wilderness – watery, rocky, deserted and ethereal. He uses photos and plein-air sketches as a starting point, and back in the studio allows the paintings to develop intuitively. Mark’s studio is in a barn between St Veep and Lanreath in Cornwall.
At a recent exhibition, Mark described his way of working:
" I began my career in 1987 as a freelance book illustrator, specialising in military history. This work was extremely precise and detail-heavy, requiring extensive research and absolute attention to historical accuracy.
But I’ve always been interested in drawing and painting the figure, and more especially the landscape. My recent focus has been on landscape painting, where I try to invoke the atmosphere of a place with little or no detail – a far cry from my illustration work. The paintings are usually based on real locations, but rather than depicting the precise topography, geography or flora of a place, I try to capture its mood and personality.
I work from sketches, photos and sometimes film, but mainly from imagination and memory."
