Mari French RI

Mari French RI is an abstract mixed media artist working with acrylics, collage, ink, calligraphy and printmaking to evoke her experience of coastal, moorland and urban landscape. Her layering and erosion of media, and her use of energetic mark making, create a rich surface history with an emphasis on texture, space and light. Her design background often emerges through strong composition and use of typography.

She was born and grew up in Manchester, where she studied Art and Design at Stockport College as a mature student, followed by a twenty year career in graphic design. In 1995 she moved to the Isle of Skye, where she lived for fifteen years, increasingly developing and exhibiting her abstract landscapes. She now lives near the North Norfolk coastline and works full time from her studio on a former 1930s RAF airbase.

She has been a finalist in the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition and in Artist and Illustrator magazine's Artist of the Year, both at the Mall Galleries, London. In 2022 she was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and in 2026 she received the Royal Institute's David Barker Award for Meditations on a place.