Mark Harrison

Mark is one of the most studious artists, with immense creativity. Having studied
Illustration at Trent Polytechnic 1970-73, followed by Post Graduate Illustration
at Wimbledon School Of Art in 1974, Mark has been an illustrator ever since,
painting around 500 book jacket illustrations for most major UK and USA publishers before recently turning to more personal work.

In 1990 Mark won the British Science Fiction Society’s award for Best Artwork in 1991 as a result of the Paper Tiger publication “Mark Harrison’s Dreamlands”.
He has exhibited work across the globe, including amongst others the World Science Fiction and World Fantasy Conventions in Chicago, Orlando, San Francisco, New Orleans and London. His work was included and sold in “Realms of the Mind: British Fantasy Art and Illustration” auction at Sotheby’s London in October 1997, and artworks of book jackets and recent personal paintings are regularly sold to collectors in the USA by the “Worlds of Wonder” gallery in Washington DC.

Mark’s work is continuously chosen for inclusion in the annual juried book of the best in contemporary Fantastic Art entitled “Spectrum”, published by Underwood Books in the USA. His contribution of five paintings to a group exhibition called “Stockbridge”, at the Phoenix Gallery in Brighton in 1997, in which eight widely diverse artists and photographers produced groups of portraits of Sara Stockbridge, an actor and former main model for Vivienne Westwood has resulted in a formidable full page review in The Guardian.

Mark’s frequent visits to South East Asia have produced Asian imagery, decorative portraits and more recently, landscapes and cityscapes in pastel and oil. His work is moody, depicting cities and temples with fleeting glimpses of transparency as if they have no outline. The harsh lines are replaced with a soft and tender touch, reconciling the real physical state of his subject matters with his own desire on how the world would and could be.