Mark Beesley
After working as a solicitor for several years, I retrained and then worked as a graphic designer and illustrator, while continuing to paint part-time. I have now almost succeeded in retiring from illustration work to spend more time painting and drawing. I also teach adult leisure learning classes in Art History. I regularly hold solo exhibitions in Suffolk and contribute to group exhibitions in East Anglia, London and Somerset. In 2018 I was awarded the Sir Hugh Casson Drawing Prize at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and in 2020 the regional prize in 'The Discerning Eye' at the Mall Gallery. Commissions include a painting for a new Medical Centre in Ipswich in 2016 and my work is in private and corporate collections in Britain, USA and Europe. I am a member of The Suffolk Group, The Ipswich Art Society, The Colchester Art Society and the Society of Graphic Fine Art and I exhibit regularly with these organisations.
Artist Statement
My work is figurative, but drawn from the imagination as much as from my surroundings. My main interest is in the balance between natural and artificial elements in the landscape, particularly in East Anglia, where intensive farming imposes abstract patterns and shapes and the structures and buildings also contradict our expectations of what rural Britain looks like, but they have a reason to be there and a strong visual impact. Most of my pictures are not views of actual places, instead they are put together from various elements that I have seen at different times and in different places; buildings, landscapes, effects of light, figures and events. I try to express the incongruous, sometimes disturbing quality of these images and their abstract forms. I work in oils and watercolour, and also use pastel for working outdoors.