Art Gallery
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Mark's practice as an artist
Mark James Murphy is an artist and printmaker. He was born in North-East England in the early 1980s. He is a self-taught linocut artist, with an ongoing love affair with this medium.
I discovered three lonely linocutting tools in the printmaking cupboard, while doing my Fine Art Degree and decided I will keep them close to hand. Well over a decade later, I still use the same three tools for all of my cuts. I love the physicality of relief printing. I love creating black and white images, on strong, hessian-backed domestic linoleum. I draw out my image directly with a pencil onto the lino and always hand burnish using a wooden spoon. The labor-intensive nature of my practice, marked with daubs of black ink on the skin, is a nod to the industrial past of my region.
Mark’s work is often informed by the area he came from, where he lives at present and popular culture. He also reproduces his linocut designs on to walls in the form of large murals for homes and businesses. Mark’s work has featured in shows throughout the UK and Europe. He currently lives in South-East Asia.
Wall Murals
Exhibitions
Mark’s work has featured in shows throughout the UK and Europe:
- The Brick Lane Gallery, London
- The Dotty Dog Gallery, Shrewsbury
- Crushed Chilli Gallery, Durham
- International Art For Peace show, Armenia
Meet Mark
Mark James Murphy is an artist, teacher, adventurer and writer. He was born in Sunderland, North-East England in the early 1980s. He has solo travelled extensively throughout the world and in 2017 decided to leave behind his job and apartment in the UK to teach English in Vietnam, South East Asia, for almost five years, describing it as the best moments of his life so far. There he also continued developing his practice as an artist and printmaker, documenting his travels through the medium of linocut. In 2019 he fulfilled a childhood dream when he backpacked for two months throughout the whole of India, ending up in a remote village in the Himalayan foothills. He has played football with local kids in the Sahara desert, lived with Hmong people high in the mountains of North Vietnam and worked as a farmhand in Southern Spain.
