Mark John Maguire

I was born in Liverpool and was educated at the University of Manchester, Swansea University and the Polytechnic of Wales where I studied History, Philosophy and Intellectual and Art History (MA). I have lived and worked in Ireland, Germany, Holland and the UK as a barman, labourer, soldier, Aircraft sealer, Trade Marks Examiner, Ministerial Policy Adviser in Trade & Industry (London), Head of International Relations at the Welsh Office and Principal Private Secretary to the Presiding Officer at the National Assembly for Wales.

I left the Civil Service in 2005 and dedicated myself to art and writing. My large, vibrant and luminous paintings are metaphysical in approach and, as with my writing, personal and intense. They frequently convey contemporary urban realism in a ruined, isolated or detached landscape. The figures in them are always captive watchers of their environment or circumstances, trapped by their inability to communicate. I call these works "narrative" because what is important in the paintings is what happens before or after the moment depicted - the viewer must move beyond the canvas to ascertain this. My smaller paintings are "etudes", conceived as intimate studies of the mood and condition of individuals. They...

BA degrees in History and Philosophy; MA degree in Intellectual History and Art History at Manchester University, Swansea University and the Polytechnic of Wales.