Mark Compton White Walls

Overview

After many years working as a fine art screenprinter and production manager, up-and-coming artist Mark Compton has retired the day job and is now a full time artist working from his studio in Auckland.

Starting out with Artrite ccreenprinting in 1997, Mark began a trade in fine art printing that fuelled his love for imagery. For the next decade he was immersed in shape, colour and composition and worked alongside renowned New Zealand and international artists, creating limited edition screenprints with them.

In this exhibition, ‘White Walls’, the first solo show of his career, Mark begins a new chapter with a step away from his more graphic print-based work, to a representational approach in his painting. Using the basis of white walls and small pops of colour, Mark explores the conversation between nature and industry around us.

“There’s no great environmental plotline behind it all” he says. “I just love the irony of how the roughness of industry and innovation can sit so interestingly with the beauty of nature.”