India Mark

Photography by Jordan Malane

With a background in figure painting and portraiture, still life has become the predominant foundation of India Mark’s practice. Her paintings analyse composition, light and the textural qualities of ordinary objects. Mark aims to make simple, straight forward paintings. Small in scale, her works reference the historical modesty of still life; from Francisco de Zurbarán, to Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, to Giorgio Morandi.

The traditions of the still life genre have consistently informed Mark’s processes. She works tonally and from life, prodding the tension points between visual depth and flatness. The objects she chooses for each painting are small, practical items that reoccur frequently throughout her work. Jars, bottles, cups and other vessels become a system of symbols, almost alphabetical in their repetition. They are broken down into elementary forms, stacked upon one another to create new silhouettes and rearranged over and over again in attempt to understand every compositional possibility.

Born in 1993 in Gerringong, NSW and now residing in Wollongong, NSW, India Mark graduated with Master of Fine Art (Painting) from the National Art School in 2018. In 2023, Mark won the Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize (awarded through Art Gallery of Western Australia’s The Lester Prize) and was also shortlisted for the 2023 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and Portia Geach Memorial Award. In 2023 Mark’s works featured in the exhibition ‘Light & Life: Margaret Olley, Laura Jones, India Mark and Mirra Whale’ at Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Alley Art Centre. By special invitation, Mark spent a number of weeks in residency at the gallery and created new work in response to objects from the re-creation of Olley’s home studio. Her work is currently held in the collections of The National Art School, Tweed Regional Gallery and the Wollongong Art Gallery.

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