Mark Thompson – Transformed in Newfoundland

British painter Mark Thompson thought he’d be in Newfoundland a couple of months when he arrived in December, 2019 for an art residency on the rugged tip of the Avalon Peninsula. Then the pandemic hit.

The experience that began at the famed Pouch Cove artist retreat transformed him, freed his art and led him to settle on The Rock for good.

Being alone with his thoughts was transformative

The residency is right at the end of the Avalon peninsula, and all you can see around you is sea and its rugged coastline, Thompson says.

“I was the only one there, so it was just me and my thoughts. They were incredibly loud, and the intensity of the process . . . it was really transformative.” 

Changes were deep. It wasn’t just being isolated, but also: “it was a question of stopping; there was nothing to pursue. I wasn’t preparing for a show or painting for a gallery.“ Thompson says he thinks that gave him permission to follow exactly what he wanted to follow, without any pressure.

No one was watching, there was no gallery to be shocked by a change, and I was learning to give myself permission to fail again.

Mark Thompson

Weirdly, the monochromatic Newfoundland landscape made his colours bloom.

My work had been more or less monochromatic for years, and for a while I’d been chasing colour but never quite able to grasp hold of it, Thompson says. “Weirdly, after stepping into this quite monochromatic northern landscape, colour began to bloom.”

“I’m not going to say that it was all smooth sailing, but once I began to increase the range of pigments available on my palette, I felt like a kid in a sweet shop and was so excited about this expanded direction in my work.” – from a profile in BoldBrush, here.

Thompson says his paintings are “works of memory.” He uses an indirect process, the image and surface built up through successive layers of glazing and scumbling – techniques that are “are steeped in the history and tradition of painting, but allow me great emotional and physical freedom.”

Mark Thompson still exhibits in Germany and Norway

Born in the Fenlands of Eastern England (1972), Mark studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the U.S., the National Museum of Art in Lithuania, the Hordaland International Art Gallery in Norway, and the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle. His work is held in many collections, including the Government Art Collection of Great Britain and Microsoft collections and has recently exhibited in Germany and Norway.

Represented by Christina Parker Gallery, here.

Mark Thompson’s Instagram, here.

His website, here.

His Print shop, here.

Pouch Cove Artist Residency, here.