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Mark Francis LOCATOR
Lot 13
Price Realised: €14,500
Estimate: €14,000 - €18,000
Mark Francis b. 1962 LOCATOR, 2011 Oil and acrylic on canvas laid down on panel, 60" x 48" (152 x 122cms), signed, inscribed and dated 2011 verso. Provenance: Kerlin Gallery, Dublin; Bonhams New York, 09/02/2023. Born in Newtownards, C... Read more
Lot 13 - LOCATOR by Mark Francis Lot 13 Mark Francis LOCATOR
Estimate: €14,000 - €18,000
Mark Francis b. 1962
LOCATOR, 2011
Oil and acrylic on canvas laid down on panel, 60" x 48" (152 x 122cms), signed, inscribed and dated 2011 verso.

Provenance: Kerlin Gallery, Dublin; Bonhams New York, 09/02/2023.

Born in Newtownards, Co Down, Mark Francis has built an impressive career, having had a continuous run of solo exhibitions in prestigious galleries throughout Europe, the UK and the USA.  He is an abstract painter who initially drew inspiration from images that had been made newly visible through the lens of an electron microscope. His early works from the 1990s, with their suggestion of sperm and spores, resonated in an age of genetic engineering and biological warfare.  In the following decades his work continued to explore scientific imagery, evolving and mutating while at the same time managing to remain instantly recognisable as a Mark Francis.

More recently his paintings have begun taking other points of pictorial reference, such as visual interpretations of data received by radio telescopes used to chart distant zones of the cosmos. Francis is fascinated by the mesmerizing, repetitive quality of 'sound wave' vibrations, providing a challenge for his technical virtuosity. His paintings, like Locator, seem to be continually in motion with their hypnotic liquid rhythms. The horizontal lines that dominate the painting are set against thinner vertical paths and bold black dots. This painting is clearly related to the world of digital technology, suggesting computer circuitry and, more likely, the invisible high-speed communication network that shapes this digital age.

Apart from any external references, Locator gives us a rich, energised visual experience. There is a lively dynamic between order and disorder, between the man-made and the natural. The picture pulsates with life: against the gentle horizontal flow of the background, spots seem to shimmy and dance on the surface.

Dr Frances Ruane, HRHA,  May 2023
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