We are delighted to welcome Mark back to exhibit at Black Swan Arts. Part of his process for working out ideas is his use of photography. He often creates small numbers of prints and overpaints them with encaustic (microcrystalline wax and pigment) to work through potential directions before launching into the much longer process of creating a large scale painting.

For Black Swan Arts feature wall in our ground floor shop, he has chosen to share some of his botanical works. The flowers are quite centrally composed so that they become hovering objects of serenity for contemplation. Although the base of these works is Karasick’s photography, each work is unique in its own right as a consequence of the encaustic process.

Accompanying these works is a more playful encaustic painting of the son of a museum director who Karasick met and was struck by the animated nature of the young boy. Karasick filmed the boy’s cycle of expressions, then retrieved some film stills and finally made a suite of paintings based on the film.

Mark Karasick, born in 1959 and raised in Canada, attended Art College in Toronto. He was introduced to encaustic painting in 1983 and has since continued to experiment with this Greco-Roman technique, mostly known through the Egyptian mummy portraits from Fayum and Hawara. In 1989, during his first visit to Italy, his work came to the attention of Swiss-Italian collector Signor Carlo Monzino, who sponsored Karasick to remain in Italy for five years of continued research and practice.

Karasick has exhibited his works in solo and group exhibitions across North America, Asia and Europe. And in Canada and London, he has exhibited alongside artists such as:

• Anish Kapoor
• Bill Viola
• Nobuyoshi Araki
• Matt Collishaw

His most recent exhibition took place at the National Gallery of Sweden. The show toured to the National Gallery of Finland where he exhibited with numerous artists he admires, including:

• Marina Abramović
• George Baselitz
• Jake and Dinos Chapman
• Jeff Koons
• Jenny Saville
• Yinka Shonibare
• Gavin Turk

He was asked to carry a dialogue with an iconic work of his choice. The 4 x 6 metre encaustic painting he produced was a life-size winged ascending Christ figure. It was based on the study drawings of Michelangelo with the wings of the early aviator Otto Lilienthal, titled The Navigator.

Find out more about Mark on his website.