Mark Painter — Painter — Wheatfield with Crows

Wheatfield with Crows by Mark Painter — Oil paint on wood, 61 × 122 cm (2026), from the series Wheatfield with Crows

Mark Painter

Current work

Wheatfield with Crows

A developing series concerned with painting, mortality and the way an artist may be remembered through the work they leave behind.

View current work Previous work

Mark Painter has been making paintings since childhood and studied Fine Art at St Martins School of Art and the Royal College of Art. His work has been exhibited in Britain since the 1970s. The site includes a substantial history of previous work, from India, Again to earlier paintings and constructions.

Current work

Wheatfield with Crows

These paintings consider the relationship between an artist's final works, mortality and artistic memory. The title refers to Vincent van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows — not as a subject to illustrate, but as a starting point for a broader question: what happens when an artist becomes conscious that every painting might become part of their legacy?

The series explores the idea of the “last painting” — the work made at the point where life, practice and legacy become inseparable. These are not presented as my final paintings. They are an open and developing body of work.

Wheatfield with Crows

Wheatfield with Crows

Oil paint on wood 61 × 122 cm 2026

This is the beginning of the series. More paintings will be added as the work develops.

Previous work Artist statement

Previous work

Earlier chapters

Before Wheatfield with Crows, the practice moved through India, Again and a wider history of paintings and constructions. The path is continuous: earlier work → India, Again → Wheatfield with Crows.

India, Again Earlier work

Previous work

India, Again

India, Again is a significant recent body of work arising from memories and experiences of India. In the early 1980s I travelled through India, making watercolours along the way. More than forty years later those paintings and memories became the starting point for a series of oil paintings on wood.

The work was concerned with the return of remembered places and experiences through painting, and with the distance between the original experience and its later reconstruction through memory.

It remains an important part of the story of the work leading towards the present series.

Earlier work Current work

India, Again

40 Years Apart

Some of the India paintings began with watercolours made while travelling through India in the early 1980s. The distance between those paintings and the later oils is more than forty years.

Looking at the old paintings now is like looking at a memory through another memory. The places remain recognisable, but the experience of them has changed. The old watercolours are therefore not simply source material. They are part of the history of those paintings.

1980s — Watercolour

India watercolour I Watercolour Early 1980s

2026 — Oil on wood

Park and Ride Oil on wood 2026

1980s — Watercolour

India watercolour II Watercolour Early 1980s

2026 — Oil on wood

Tourist Advice Oil on wood 2026

1980s — Watercolour

India watercolour III Watercolour Early 1980s

2026 — Oil on wood

Breakfast Oil on wood 2026

1980s — Watercolour

India watercolour IV Watercolour Early 1980s

2026 — Oil on wood

Brothel Oil on wood 2026
Mark Painter logo — painter

About

About Mark Painter

Mark Painter was born in Bermuda in 1957 and moved to England in 1966. He began painting as a child and has continued to paint across decades of travel, work and return.

He studied at Great Yarmouth School of Art before studying Fine Art at St Martins School of Art in London, where he graduated with First Class Honours in 1979. He subsequently studied Fine Art Painting at the Royal College of Art, completing an MA in 1984.

His first exhibitions took place while he was still a student. He was selected for New Contemporaries at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1977 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1978 and 1979.

After leaving the Royal College of Art, Painter's life and work took a less conventional path. He worked in theatre, including at the Royal Opera House, lived and travelled in different parts of the world, and continued painting alongside other work. Experiences of Bermuda, India, Nepal and elsewhere have contributed to a practice concerned with memory, place, observation and transformation.

India, Again returned to watercolours and memories from travels in India in the early 1980s, reconstructing those experiences through oil paintings on wood. That enquiry into memory and distance remains close to the present work.

Wheatfield with Crows is the current stage of the same continuing investigation — not a sudden departure, but another chapter in a lifetime of painting. It asks how painters think about mortality, legacy and the work that may outlive them.

Painter's work has continued to be exhibited over several decades, including exhibitions at the ICA, Royal Academy, Mall Galleries, Brick Lane Gallery, Brixton East, Devonshire Collective, The Holy Art, Old Fox Yard and Sussex Contemporary. He continues to paint in Sussex.

Current work Artist statement

Practice

Artist statement

I have become increasingly interested in the relationship between painting, memory and mortality.

Artists are often remembered through particular paintings, sometimes through paintings made near the end of their lives. Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows is one example of a painting that has acquired an extraordinary significance because of its place within the artist's life and the circumstances surrounding his death.

But the question is not simply which painting was an artist's last. The more interesting question is what happens to a painting when we know an artist has died. Does the painting change? Does our understanding of it change? And what does an artist think about the possibility that their paintings may eventually outlive them?

Wheatfield with Crows begins with these questions. The paintings are not intended to illustrate death. They are an attempt to think through mortality from within the act of painting itself.

I am still painting, still working, and still uncertain where the series will lead. This is the beginning of a conversation rather than a conclusion.

Previous work

Earlier work

The paintings and constructions below represent different periods and directions in my practice. They sit beneath India, Again in the chronology of the work, and record an ongoing interest in structure, chance, memory, place, material and the relationship between order and disruption.

For the current series, see Wheatfield with Crows. For the recent India paintings, see India, Again.

Sunshine by Mark Painter — Acrylic and Ink on Paper (2024)

Paintings

Oil, acrylic and watercolour across decades — observation, invention, remembered places and studio making.

View paintings
Uk Riot by Mark Painter — Mixed Paint on Reclaimed Wood (2011)

Fences & Barricades

Mixed paint on reclaimed wood. Defensive structures that began in the studio and later included the Autobiography Fence.

View fences & barricades
Iceland by Mark Painter — Reclaimed Wood and Recycled paint (2016)

Splinter Groups

Reclaimed wood and recycled paint — freer arrangements that emerged while the fences were being made.

View splinter groups
Maquette 1 by Mark Painter — Reclaimed Wood and Recycled Paint in Crate (2024)

Crates

Movable elements gathered within constructed boxes — storage as a way of composing.

View crates
Harrington Sound by Mark Painter — Reclaimed Wood and Salvaged Paint (2024)

Shutters

Reclaimed wood and salvaged paint — refuge, weather and restraint, informed by Bermuda hurricane shutters.

View shutters

Archive

Selected works

Browse earlier paintings and constructed series. Current work: Wheatfield with Crows. Recent previous work: India, Again.

History

Exhibitions

Selected exhibitions from student years to recent presentations, with earlier exhibitions listed separately.

Selected exhibitions

  1. 1977

    New Contemporaries

    ICA

  2. 1978

    Stowells Trophy

    Royal Academy

  3. 1979

    Stowells Trophy

    Royal Academy

  4. 1991

    Discerning Eye

    Mall Galleries

  5. 2011

    Solo Exhibition — Autobiography Fence

    Birley Centre

  6. 2016

    Bad Behaviour

    Brixton East

  7. 2018

    Open

    Devonshire Collective

  8. 2020

    The Holy Art

    The Factory

  9. 2024

    Ultra Modern

    Old Fox Yard

  10. 2024

    Sussex Open

    Sussex Contemporary

Earlier exhibitions

  1. 2009

    Art in Mind

    Brick Lane Gallery

Studio

Contact

For enquiries about paintings, exhibitions, studio visits or forthcoming work, please get in touch.

Collectors and curators are welcome to contact me directly regarding available paintings and the current body of work.

Studio visits can be arranged by appointment.

View current work

Professional

For curators, galleries & collectors

A selection of high-resolution images and further information about the current body of work is available on request.

For exhibition proposals, studio visits, press enquiries or information about available paintings, please contact Mark Painter directly.

Contact Mark Painter

Complete work index (87 works)

Complete index of 87 works by Mark Painter — painter (not a house painter). Current series Wheatfield with Crows; previous work India, Again and related early-1980s India watercolours (40 Years Apart); earlier paintings, fences and barricades, splinter groups, crates and shutters. Each entry includes title and available details.

Wheatfield with Crows

India watercolours

India, Again

Paintings

Fences & Barricades

Splinter Groups

Crates

Shutters