Drawing on a range of influences from children’s picture book illustration to Persian, Chinese and pre-modern western painting, Mark Rodda creates landscapes that are a fantastic blend of traditions and his own imaginings. Describing his paintings as ‘pure escapism’, he encourages the viewer to construct their own narrative from the ambiguous sign-posts contained within the works. In his most recent series of paintings the artist has populated his formerly unoccupied landscapes with creatures and people. As he explains:
Read More‘I felt like I was getting lonely in the studio and I needed to paint some friends. It is not clear what these creatures are up too, not even to me. Some are just sitting and waiting for something to happen, while others are in the act of completing a cryptic task.’
Born 1973 in Tasmania, Rodda has held over 16 solo exhibitions in Australia and New Zealand and has shown in group exhibitions and festivals internationally and around the country. He was a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2013 and in 2014 won the Glover Prize, Australia’s richest prize for landscape painting. In 2013 he featured in Australian Art Collector and Artist Profile magazines. His work is held in the collection of Artbank and corporate and private collections.
Text courtesy Gallery 9.
