Mark Orbell

I paint in order to create an illusion with the aim of conveying a given emotion or feeling. I wish to make the viewer uneasy, using something not seen before, making the viewer curious.
Never photo-realism, something deeper.
Portraits not too close to the subject, more an observation of body language or mood.
Figurative but not representational.
Looking at identity objectively, not my opinion but pulling something unseen out of the sitter.
I try to do this with inanimate say buildings, trees and the abstract work I paint too.
I juxtapose different levels and textures.
I aim through imagery to disrupt the text of the painting so it doesn't sit right, and this draws me to back the initial image.
Why make the viewer uneasy? To get them thinking what?
Hit them at a deeper level, to make them question things that are taken as given. To reveal, to open their minds and take a new perspective.

Turned down some time ago by the RA and RCA because they said they had nothing to teach me. I remember once having an interview with the head of art at goldsmiths he ask me why I used an image from a photograph as a basis for a large painting. He couldn't understand the purpose of a photographic mnemonic.