Mark Thompson: The World Distilled

Since his first solo exhibition at Proud Galleries twenty years ago, Mark Thompson has become an established and internationally renowned artist in his field. In January 2019, he will return to Proud once again to exhibit his most recent collection of formidable landscape paintings.

Based in Sweden, Mark Thompson’s eerie and dramatic works are reminiscent of the barren landscapes and Nordic Noir aesthetic that surround him. Whether he is depicting an empty building with closed doors and cavernous hallways or a panoramic snowscape of never-ending streets, Thompson’s work is unified by an intense aura of nostalgia, mystery and the uncanny. His fascination with painting as a medium has never wavered throughout his career; in his words, “there is something about the slowing down of time that painting requires - the fixing of an image over time - that held my attention and still does.”

'Mark Thompson: The World Distilled' is an exhibition exploring place and memory, and its emotive, quiet landscapes add a dream-like quality to empty and abandoned scenes. The artworks are large and atmospheric and when viewed as a collection, have a remarkable capacity to invoke feelings of nostalgia for strange, unfamiliar spaces. Thompson’s art questions whether it is possible to bring a fading memory to life by recalling a distant place and reflecting on these fragmented moments.