Mark Surridge

Mark Surridge’s (b 1963) paintings have a lyrical and ephemeral quality of light and form that immediately engages the eye. The Cornish landscape and its weather systems is one subject of interest, but this is only a starting point. Surridge studies the landscape not for its own sake as a retrogressive representational source, but sets out to look beyond it to elicit a simplification of form, resulting in the creation of a painting which lives as an object in its own right.

“For me it is the physical act of making that informs my work. I use the principles of the palimpsest to look at the world through a series of layering – the most distant layers erased or partially erased by the ones in front.

Applying archaeological terms to examine patterns and shapes found in the natural world I am striving to illuminate some of the mysteries that confront us when we allow ourselves time to sit and notice. I believe that nature’s patterns can be found within us.

When in the studio I focus on ‘being in the now’ experimenting with methods of mark making and psychic-automatism to unleash signs and metamorphic forms that can be repeated and sequenced. This corresponds with my interest in in the cycles and seasonal changes found in the natural world; I site fractal art, Eastern Taoist and Zen philosophies to bind these ideas together.”