Mark Hanham Biography
Born 1978 in Sydney Australia
Mark is known for his large scale, bold cityscapes. He takes the viewer on a journey of discovery into his own world. The abstract expressionist style in which he paints is heavily influenced by the American modernist painter Jackson Pollock, with a figurative twist. Hanham’s work provides a bird’s eye view on street and cityscapes and offers a hidden commentary on the chaos of a city, the rush, as well as the alienation that urban living inevitably brings. Mark Hanham was born in 1978 in Paddington, Sydney, Australia. He embraced painting at the age of fourteen. He went on to study at the National Art School and then completed a Master’s Degree in Art at the College of Fine Art in Australia. Mark Hanham’s work often depicts scenes of iconic cities around the world. On top of rather accurate documentation of the places, the clever distortion of perspective and abstract finish adds a degree of personal emotion and nostalgia into the paintings. In a way, Hanham’s paintings act like his own travel journal, presenting major urban centres like Paris, Sydney, New York, London, or Tokyo, as well as more romantic scenes of Venice or Tuscany. Mark Hanham is a strongly collected artist. Mark’s celebrity clients include Russell Crowe, Lionel Richie, Todd Jacques, Mark Taylor (CEO Taylor Constructions), Atlassian Corp PLC’s Sydney Scott Farquhar and Kim Jackson, Frank Costigan (CEO at QBE Insurance), Tanya March (SVP of EnVizi North America), the Australian cricket player & former captain Shane Watson & his wife, TV celebrity Lee Watson, winemaker Lisa McGuigan Wines, and many corporate and large private collections Australia and worldwide. While the influence of Jackson Pollock both in colour scale and in style is undeniable, compared to abstract expressionists, Mark Hanham uses a much more literal approach by introducing figurative motifs. He uses the abstract line and subjects it to imaginative experiments with colour, texture, and layering, until he captures his vision of a moment in time. The subjects are often painted in black and white, which adds the lightness of an unfinished sketch. They are then engulfed with large swaths of ocean blue, hot red or black, playfully dotted with details in contrasting colours. Sometimes there is a warmer ochre tone present, adding to the romantic and soft feel of otherwise sharply dynamic work. Other times, the paintings are left as they were, fully painted in black and white. Mark Hanham’s landscapes stand out from the others by their unique perspective. We are offered sweeping views over different cities from above as if we were looking out of a helicopter, or a small sport plane. One might feel a mild sense of vertigo as we are lifted in the air, but also a relentless boldness coursing through our veins, which comes from quite literally being on top of the world. The large scale of the paintings adds to the feeling of having the ground taken from under our feet and being fully absorbed into the view. The noticeable round distortion around the edges looks like we were viewing the image through a fisheye lens, trying to fit as much of the land into one canvas as possible. However, Mark Hanham’s cityscapes are far from static. The rush of the city is portrayed using the Pollock-like drips on the canvas. It’s like we are looking at the cityscape through a thin veil of static, reminding us that what we see changes every second, and is only a fleeting moment that disappears in the blink of an eye. We can almost see the trajectories of people’s movements as if we took a picture with an old analogue camera with slow shutter speed. The chaotic grain of the images adds a nostalgic feeling to the compositions. Apart from documenting urban landscapes, Mark Hanham’s paintings offer a commentary on the never-seizing chaos of a city, the excited rush, as well as the alienation that inevitably comes with urbanization. Mark Hanham is certainly one of the frequently collected investment artists of Australia and his talent and subject matter make his works appeal to an international audience. These universal themes appeal to new collectors and seasoned connoisseurs alike, and especially to travel enthusiasts and lovers of nostalgia. His bold expressive landscapes of iconic urban centres – Sydney, London, Paris, NYC, Venice, Tokyo and Melbourne – stand out from the usual cityscapes with their scale, unique perspective and expressive rendition.
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