Mark Cazalet
- Faculty
Biography
Mark Cazalet attended Chelsea and Falmouth College of Art before being awarded two postgraduate scholarships with the French Government at L'École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (Christian Boltanski's Atelier), and subsequently at MS University, Baroda, West India, with the Association of Commonwealth Universities (under Prof Gulam Mohammed Sheikh). Cazalet's studio practice is based around drawing, painting and printmaking, usually concerned with landscape themes; informed by particular qualities of light, colour and presence, often executed at dawn, dusk and nighttime. In the spring of 2012 and 2013, he was artist in residence at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut. Cazalet has completed large-scale glass and painted works for many ecclesiastical settings, including Worcester, Manchester, and Chelmsford Cathedrals. He works with fabricators in materials as varied as mosaic, mural, stained glass, etched/engraved glass, textiles, and lino/woodcut limited edition books. He also, infrequently, undertakes a small number of portraits.
On drawing
Drawing is the engine of my creativity, from doodles, empiric observations, designs to transcriptions of art. A good drawing could be so raw that it makes no sense to anyone else, but if it touches something new or translates what I have experienced afresh, it generates more excitement than elaborate projects. Drawing is my laboratory where the thinking, fumbling and discovering happens. It’s where I am free to experiment and enjoy myself. There is nowhere to hide when you draw and no point in pretending; each mark and touch conveys precisely one’s state of mind and hidden intentions. Recently I have been out early drawing with the dawn chorus, recording the space as if sung through the birds’ voices, rendered in marks, colours and layered collage. The session is a meditation, there is no erasing or editing, just a sequence of decisions based on the rhythm of the emerging whole.
Specialism
Drawing
