Unlike many of the artists of the past, Marks inspiration derives, not from Nature, but from its antithesis, the Metropolis. As a student in the 1990’s, Mark had been reluctant to visit New York, but once there, he underwent a conversion, and the city, particularly when viewed from the Empire State Building and World Trade Center became a revelation and an inspiration.
The works are not maps, but are intended to evoke the atmosphere and experience of seeing them, instead of actually reading them. Rather than particular geographic features being represented, the complexity of the relationships of the component units -people, buildings, vehicles, vegetation is conveyed. Taken individually, each is meaningless. Only when connected with the others does coherence emerge and the whole work becomes greater than the sum of its parts. He has attempted to express or articulate the confusion and incoherence that is the City and celebrate the synthesis of the myriad units into an independent organism.
The works take a very long time to complete and are clearly a laborious task. Even this apparent tedium has its reward, however and in the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘Sheer plod makes plough-down sillion shine’ [The Windhover] -the constant abrasion of a plough-share scrapes off the dirt and reveals the shiny metal below.