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5/3/2004

Mark Francis

Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin

Recent Paintings

On Thursday, 4th March 2004, the Gallery Thomas Schulte will be presenting the first individual exhibition of paintings by Mark Francis in Berlin. The opening event will take place from 7 pm to 9 pm, and the artist will be present.

Mark Francis (born in Newtownards, Northern Ireland in 1962) lives and works in London. His often large-format works play with a pictorial reality that fluctuates between the painterly process and imaginary dimensions and motifs borrowed from microscopic images of finely structured organisms. Francis developed his eloquent painterly style during the 90s. Although the content of his work is not especially close to that of the "Young British Artists", he is still an important exponent of this time of departure in British art. As a consequence, he was already introduced to the Berlin public when the city played host to "Sensations" at the Hamburger Bahnhof during 1998.

Mark Francis' works have been shown all over the world in individual and group exhibitions, and now have a place in important museum collections including the Tate Gallery in London and, of course, the Saatchi Collection.

Mark Francis' paintings are based on scientific, microbiological originals showing cell structures and bacteria. These determine his pictorial structure and open compositions and give his work an unmistakable style. The smooth quality of his "wet on wet" technique almost causes the objects of the picture to disappear beneath the surface, thus forcing aside strictly clinical connotations. Mark Francis' technique occasionally reminds us of the painterly methods employed by Gerhard Richter.

In recent years, Francis has refined this style considerably. The motifs of his pictures have become increasingly self-referential, and aspects of composition and colour have come to the fore.

The spatial organisation of the paintings in particular has been perfected in a fascinating way. Linear structures, which continue to resemble organisms, are overlapped on the various levels of the image and can now only be differentiated due to the techniques employed to portray them. In this way, Francis creates a subtle three-dimensional quality, made all the more effective by his sensitive use of colour.

This exhibition by the Gallery Thomas Schulte follows a cabinet exhibition of drawings shown in May 2003 and will include the most recent pictures from the last six months, among them four large-format works.

Image: Atlas, 2003
Oil on canvas
213,5 x 183 cm
Private collection

Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday: 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Saturday: 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Galerie Thomas Schulte
Mommsenstraße 56
10629 Berlin - Charlottenburg
Germany
Fon: (49) 030 / 324 00 44
Fax: (49) 030 / 345 15 96

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