"Bringing the Museum to You"

 

By permission of the artist, The Cyber Art Show is pleased to feature a 12-piece exhibition of works by Canadian landscape painter, Mark Fletcher (born 1957 in Ontario, Canada).
 

Mark Fletcher's life has been very much like that of a Gypsy. His father worked as a railway man and moved across the country building his career as the company grew. Naturally, as he moved, the family was in tow. Before Mark had even finished high school he had moved 16 times. The constant relocation was a blessing in disguise, as it involved moving province to province, thus exposing the artist to the many regions of Canada. This exposure gave Mark a sense of the character and culture of the various regions and the importance each region played in tying together the fabric on the nation.

 

In the mid seventies Mark gained entrance to Trinity College School. This was a starting point into the visual arts for Mark.The school had an optional art program, run at the time by the well known Canadian print maker David Blackwood. It was through  Mr. Blackwood's encouragement and that of master Paul Godfrey that the young student  began to consider a career in the visual arts. Leaving Trinity, Mark extended his interest in art by studying Art History at the University of Guelph along with taking a degree in Earth Sciences. 

 

Mark graduated and immediately set up studio space to enter the world of visual art. With first studios being set up in Stratford then St. Marys, Ontario ( his ancestral home).

 

Mark has been called a "Narrative Artist," in the sense that his works all link together to tell stories. A product of travel, and his exposure to many regions of rural Canada over the decades, the foundation of Marks work has been to capture the images of a culture quickly dissolving as Canada has become urbanized. There has been an ongoing shift from a rural culture and rural economy in Canada since about the start of the First World War, to that of urban. Towns and villages have disappeared, families have been separated and stories lost over the last 100 years. The images Mark paints draw from that sense of loss, they are images created to somehow catch a glimpse of what we have lost and are losing.

 

Mark also performs and tours extensively  with the Celtic/Celtibilly group Steel City Rovers. 

 

                      http://www.steelcityrovers.com/