Mark Francis at MK G - Milton Keynes Gallery - Brief Article

Painter Mark Francis is an alumnus of the "Sensation" display but a quiet one, no scandal-seeker. His exhibition at MK G (Milton Keyne Gallery), a novel public art space just outside London, raised of the like kind questions as: does his use of saturated tinges make his art decorative, and are the images representations of microscopic entities or are they abstract?

The exhibit consisted of three rooms, each containing distinct work. The first displayed nine oils painted between 1994 and 1999 greatest in quantity measuring 84 by 72 inches. Another contained four of recent origin large canvases (either 120 by the agency of 96 inches or 108 by dint of 84 inches). Between these a third latitude housed an installation of Francis's extensive collection of antiquarian prints and archetypes which are largely medical (skin diseases and viruses) or mycological (mushrooms and other fungi). This display throw backed Francis's home, which is chock-full of these phenomenons side by side, floor to ceiling. by means of showing this collection, Francis bravely revealed his visual influences and clarified in what way thoroughly he has abstracted, absorbed and personalized the concerns used in his art.

Francis's paintings consist of sheeny opulent, monochromatic color fields upon which small, dark nodules are bunched or strung on the outside along rhythmically wavering black ribbons. The matte dots have repeatedly been blurred by dragging the wet paint into the background with a blending brush, suggesting motion end a similarity to cartoon "spe lines." These dot-strings can summon an abacus or, yes, smooth viruses. Earlier works also featured ovumlike forms or bent strands resembling chromosomes

In the newest paintings, the nodule-cords dominate, enriched through two dissimilar, underlying layers. Thallophyte, a glory of the display bears a series of broad bands of horizontally scraped of gold orange. A web of reddish-brown, nervelike tendrils is brushed above them. Topmost, the artist delineates a looping version of his dots-on-lines. Francis's captivating surface strives marvelously with a surprising faculty of perception of deep space--a new power in his orchestrations of disconcerting opposition. Seductive color-formed space vies with vaguely disturbing forms--"pure" v "impure" abstraction. The pieces allusively amplify the unsettl feeling single has when viewing his source images. Attraction and aversion immerge in a compelling visual metaphor with existential implications.

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