Born in The Potteries, North Staffordshire, Mark has a six-generation family connection with the Pottery Industry. “Stoke-on-Trent has always been a place of artistry, to continue that tradition is a privilege. I think the techniques of those pottery painters must influence a style.”

A self-taught artist, Mark has been painting professionally since 1994 and was elected a member of the RI in 2018.  Based in the Staffordshire Moorlands, he is also a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and Wirral Society of Arts.

“I work best when I have a reason to paint. If I can find or make-up an accompanying story all the better, it keeps me interested. I like to transform ‘the ordinary’ into ‘the epic’.  The Potteries continues to fascinate me but I’m not a slave to my locality, Hanley or Alderney, Burslem or Berlin, I’m searching for the story and a way to paint it.”

Exhibitions:

Selected for the RI Annual Open Exhibition on ten occasions

Selected for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition on sixteen occasions

Royal Watercolour Society; Discerning Eye; New English Art Club; Royal Institute of Oil Painters; the Grosvenor Museum and Art Gallery, Chester; Manchester Academy; Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; and Wirral Society of Arts.

Public collections:

The Grosvenor Museum and Art Gallery, Chester, Cheshire

Keele University, Staffordshire

Prizes and Awards:

  • The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (Winsor & Newton Award 2018; Frank Herring Easel Award 2017)
  • Grosvenor Museum and Art Gallery, Chester Open 2017 (first prize)
  • Royal Watercolour Society (Winsor & Newton prize 2015)
  • Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2012 (first prize)
  • Wirral National (first prizes in 2012 and 2004)
  • RBSA Members & Associates (Coley Tilley Prize 2009)
  • Potteries Open 2008 (first prize)
  • Keele University Three Counties (first prizes in 2004, 2001 and 1999)
  • Stafford Open 2001 (The Paper House Prize)
  • Leek Festival of Art 1995 (Maimeri Award)