LUST
FOR LIFE
14 – 23 FEBRUARY
83 High Street, Prahran VIC 3181
Biography
Mark McCarthy
Long Painting is a term I use to describe my practice. It refers to how ideas emerge through time and sustained looking. The paintings are introspective and reflective. They are intentionally distant, with a quiet emotional tone. Painting, for me, is a long process, both in how the work is made and how it is viewed.
I am drawn to places that feel remembered rather than directly observed. Each work begins intuitively and develops through fragments, horizons and provisional structures. These elements resist fixed definition. While I draw from both natural and built environments, I do not aim to describe them. Memory is the starting point and the painting moves toward something unresolved.
At the centre of my practice is an interest in intimate reflection. I am concerned with how a painting can hold attention without directing interpretation. I aim to create spaces for dialogue, memory and imagination, where meaning remains open.
Mark McCarthy is a Melbourne-based, multi award winning artist with over 25 years of experience. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, he is renowned for a distinctive painting style that merges recognizable forms with abstract elements, creating a profound sensory connection to the natural world. Throughout his career, Mark has held numerous solo and group exhibitions across Australia and has been a finalist in prestigious national art prizes. His accolades include winning the 2004 John Leslie Art Prize for landscape painting, the 2011 Whyalla Art Prize, and the 2022 Glover Prize Children’s Choice Award. Mark is also a recipient of an Australia Council New Work Grant.
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Works
High Moon, 2021. Oil on linen. 175 x 130cm
After Nightfall, 2024. Oil on linen. 40 x 51cm.
Invisible Forces, 2024. Oil on linen. 40 x 51cm
Proudly Supported by:
NotFair Art Foundation
info@notfair.com.au