Mark Connolly's medium-to-large oil paintings depict a labyrinthian maze of lush, cool-toned jungles and turbulent seascapes that are both real and imagined. Most are full of lions, leopards, tigers, crocodiles, snakes and other predators, but you will also find sea monsters, dragons, chimeras and devils alike.
Read MoreAs the title suggests, these creatures are often shown in mid-battle, sometimes attacking other creatures, or sometimes trapped in a sustained conflict with men, knights, or even the gods themselves. As in most mythological fables, they're meant to represent good versus evil, the arc of the hero, and the petty foibles of man. And yet for all their phantasmagorical content, they never come off as shrill. They don't threaten or unnerve or dwell in the bloody. In fact, the battles themselves often remain unresolved, always in media res, which only underscores their function as make-believe and theater.
It's all clearly staged much like contemporary wrestling—a theme that pops up in Connolly's paintings with some frequency. 'I am interested in the question of whether the world is imagined or fictive,' he says. 'I'm constantly chasing paintings that fuse the imagined and the observed, hopefully creating something resembling a new world.'
Mark Connolly, (b. 1991, Northern Ireland), studied at Sint Lucas Beeldende Kunst Gent, 2013, Edinburgh College of Art, 2014, and The Royal Drawing School, London, 2017. His work has been shown at the James Freeman Gallery (London), Galerie Wolfsen (Skagen, Denmark), Galerie Droste (Berlin), Everyday Gallery (Antwerp), Wells Projects (London), Eccleston Project Space (London) and The Five Bells (New Cross). His residencies include: Borgo Pigano (Tuscany), Griffin Gallery (London), FoAM Lab (Brussels), and Six Foot Gallery (Glasgow).
Born in Ballymena near Belfast, Ireland in 1991, and currently based in London.
Text courtesy Simchowitz
