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“I Feel a Connection With This Place”

Sarah Walker | 15 October 2024

Celebrated artist, Mark Spray explains what leads him to a three-week residency at LWC.

 

Mark Spray needs to feel an emotional connection to his work. It’s this approach which resulted in him spending five years living outdoors, creating the pieces for his collection, ‘The Long Silences’.

 

“I spent all my time outside, engaging with the landscape in Cornwall,” he explains. “I was out there in all weathers, sleeping out there and then developing the work.”

 

Mark describes himself as a landscape artist; “But I’m not about pretty scenes. It’s looking at something ‘other’. That sense of otherness comes from a sense of self.” Influenced by the work of German-British painter, Frank Auerbach from the age of nine, Mark is obviously deeply affected by the fruits of his labour.

 

“Creating The Long Silences was phenomenal,” he admits. “I’ve had experiences that I can’t explain, that are beyond my understanding of the world.” At this point, he becomes contemplative; “I slept on a pier outside Newlyn for three days. I was completely shrowded in mist. Nobody saw me for that time on the end of the pier, watching and observing that balance between two elements of water…the sea, the mist and the colours that mix between the two. It was just incredible.”

 

“When you work with students, they pose questions which make you re-evaluate and re-think….Hopefully we can grow together”

—Mark Spray

 

So what draws him to a stint as Artist in Residence within the 1200 land-locked acres of Lord Wandsworth? He smiles. “There are things that I feel on this site, which is why I agreed to come and do this residency. There’s something within the geology of this place, within the set-up of the landscape. If I didn’t connect with it, I wouldn’t agree to do a commissioned piece here. I wouldn’t be able to tap into that ‘other’ that feeds into what I’m doing. Lord Wandsworth sits really comfortably with me in terms of otherness.”

 

Mark will spend three weeks working alongside LWC pupils, to the benefit of all concerned. “When you work with students, they pose questions which make you re-evaluate and re-think, he reveals. “So it’s going to help me grow aswell. Hopefully we can grow together.”

     

Mark will also exhibit The Long Silences in the Prideaux Gallery from Tuesday, 5th November to Saturday, 23rd November. All LWC students, staff and parents are invited to a private viewing on Friday, 8th November during which poet, Mark Goodwin will recite the words he has written as a response to the collection.

 

Following on from this, Mark will lead a workshop for parents on Saturday, 9th November at the LWC Art School. Places are limited and can be booked here.

 

During his time at LWC, Mark will also create a commissioned piece for the College, which he’s spent a great deal of time thinking about. “I’ll be getting out most mornings,” he explains. “When the light’s really beautiful. I’ll make a drawing that day, which will then inform what I’m doing. I’ll be taking regular walks in the landscape, which will deepen each time I go out. Some light will shift, some light will hit something differently and it will all inform what I’m doing.”

 

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that Mark is an artist without a plan, waiting to be swept along by a creative undercurrent. “I want the commissioned piece to be about trees,” he reveals. “I talk about this idea of ‘tree time’. Lord Wandsworth is over a hundred years old and some of the trees here will have been a similar size to the size they are now, whilst all of the students who have ever been through this school have been here.” Mark further explains the thought process by adding: “There’s this beautiful thing where, as the tree grows, the bark stays in the same place. So all the students that have ever been through here will have looked at certain trees at exactly the same height. I love the idea that we meet everyone’s gaze through looking at the tree.”

   

Mark may be a passionate dendrophile, but he’s also quick to point out that the real essence of his LWC work will focus on a more human aspect. “It’s actually more to do with the students who have been through here and the students who will come through. It’s linking all of that together with this place.”

 

And once Mark has created a body of work, how does he feel when he sees it displayed? “I have to be very careful,” he grins. “If you can imagine, it’s like someone has condensed all of the emotions you’ve felt during the creation of a piece, into a glass…and then asking you to drink it.” He remembers; “A few years ago, whenever I had a show and however well it went, I would still drive away and have to stop because I was in floods of tears.”

 

The Long Silences will be at the Prideaux Gallery from Tuesday, 5th November. With or without tears.