1. MARK POWELL

2. Midnight Songs Don’t Echo (2016)
By Mark Powell
Bic Biro on a 1944 Envelope 16 x 18.5 cm

5. Indian Elephant (2016)
By Mark Powell
Bic Biro on a 1945 Indian Document
20 x 34 cm

6. “for me the individual is a fascinating thing
“for me the individual is a fascinating thing. With my mobile phone camera I take photos of people walking the street, riding the tube or bus. I do this unnoticed at first, no egos or megalomania, no sense of self-importance or grandeur can be seen but simply a life being lived. Each person is as important or irrelevant as the next. A face that is devoid of a clear emotion gives an ambiguity that is simple and intriguing, it shows the signs in scars of travel and an uncontrolled gaze; a life lived. The canvas of vintage envelopes holds the same qualities, travel scarred and mysterious, common and used by everyone just like the biro pen that I use.”
- Mark Powell

7. Mark Powell Sites to Visit:

8. London-based artist Mark Powell reuses old envelopes as canvases to produce incredible life-like ‘photorealistic’ drawings. His sketches are made using only a Biro pen (he only uses a Bic), and they often incorporate original stamps and postage marks. By recycling the envelopes, he is in some way preserving a bit of history and the tales behind the sender. He says this is why his work, which is primarily portraiture, focuses on older characters that appear to tell their own stories from the very details, creases and wrinkles of their faces.

9. This style of working started when Powell found an envelope in an antique shop that had been sent from the front line in WWI. Other pieces have been drawn on envelopes that go back as far as Wherever possible, Powell likes to use older, more historical surfaces that give an extra sense of character and mystery to each unique drawing. As well as exhibiting his work, he continues to develop his ideas and has begun working on a larger scale, creating pieces on antique black and white maps.

10. Mark Powell ARTISTIC INFLUENCES Chuck Close (1940 – present)
“Chuck Close drives me to create better drawings simply because of his technique.”

11. Mark Powell ARTISTIC INFLUENCES
“My main influence is Jean Michel Basquiat. My favourite artist. Even though the drawings I do are completely different to his style, I find that every time I look at his work it drives me to create something and push myself. “
Jean Michel Basquiat (1960 – 1988)

12. Mark grew up in West Yorkshire and went on to study Fine art, drawing and painting at Huddersfield University.
He enrolled one day by accident. He decided to look around the studios of the university having lost his job that morning.
He began a conversation with someone who turned out to be the department head; one thing followed another, and within a couple of hours he was enrolled to study.
After graduation, Powell was invited to America to have some paintings exhibited on the west coast.
After a few years of painting in Leeds, Powell decided to move to London. After working in several different jobs, he switched his approach from mainly painting to drawing in Bic biro pen.
He was then ‘discovered’ by an American website and his work went viral! In a matter of hours he had sold all the work he had and had offers of shows around the world. He now spends his time drawing as much as possible as a full time artist.
Mark Powell
“My motivation is constant. To simply create and I hope to, one day, impress myself.”
- Mark Powell

13. Mark Powell – Interviewed
ON ADVICE FOR YOUNG ARTISTS…
“The key is to keep making work. I certainly didn’t design what happened to me, it was just pure luck. I had no plan what-so-ever. I received an one evening from a guy who said he could sell my work and from there I starting selling work online, then from that I started selling work at art fairs. It was only 18 months ago that I managed to quit my job and make work full-time.”

14. Mark Powell – Interviewed
ON WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT HIS SUCCESS…
“When I make work I always see its imperfections so when I hear someone complementing it, I just can’t get my head around it.”
ON HOW HE WORKS…
“I do it all free hand. Working exclusively in biro, I draw a basic outline and then start working intensely on one particular area. Once I have built up one section I will move onto another. It’s pretty intense because I can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

15. Mark Powell – Interviewed
ON EXPERIENCES THAT INFLUENCED HOW HE WORKS…
“At university (University of Huddersfield) I was drawing and painting. When I graduated I was making large wall paintings. I went and lived in New York for a bit and was asked to make large painting on the side of buildings. When I came back to London, I started sharing a studio for a while in Bow. Then when the guy who owned it sold the building I lost the studio and started making much smaller work because I didn’t have the space.”

16. Mark Powell – Interviewed
ON HIS CHOICE OF MATERIALS…
“It has to be a Bic medium biro. Bic’s are much smoother and more consistent.”
“I have chosen to use a biro as it is the most common tool I can find which means I can show what can be done with such things. I hope it shows what anyone can do, art supplies are not always needed to create something. I also like that fact that no mistake can be made.”

17. Mark Powell – Interviewed
ON HIS WORKING SURFACES…
“They are a few antique stores online that are good, but I prefer to go to this amazing shop in Amsterdam which I occasionally go to. The last time I went there I bought everything that they had.”
“The surfaces on which I work have a history and a hint of a story (narrative), much like the subject matter (faces, etc.) that I choose to draw. They compliment each other and I hope leads the viewer to wonder, and maybe create a history for the two. I rarely connect the drawing and the surface as they are both strangers to me”

18. Mark Powell – Interviewed
ON HOW LONG WORK TAKES TO PRODUCE…
“An A4 size piece takes a day, give or take, but the big works took a week. In fact normally this sized work would take a month but because there were time restrictions I had to power through.”

19. Mark Powell – Interviewed
ON HIS RELATIONSHIP TO HIS SUBJECT MATTER…
“I want to keep a distance between the figures and myself because I like the sense of mystery that it creates. I am sure it doesn’t make a difference to the drawings but it makes a difference to me. I like how this mystery allows for thousands of different interpretations for every piece.”

20. Old Woman Praying (2014)
Black Bic biro on newspaper
Artist Mark Powell likes to leaf through antique documents, the words and pictures on their fading pages conjuring images in his mind, usually of faces; both animal and human.
When he finds an old document, map, letter or postcard that particularly grabs him, he takes out his signature biro to begin creating a painstakingly detailed portrait responding to the object he’s drawing on.
In one piece, an old woman with her eyes cast mournfully downwards and her hands clasped in prayer emerges from a newspaper front page announcing Chamberlain’s triumphant arrival at the Munich Conference in 1938 that (unbeknownst to readers at the time) failed to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War the following year.
Mark’s work s create a dialogue between the surface being worked on and the image he creates, giving new life to letters and publications that date as far back as the 18th Century (1700s)