Western Morning News (Saturday)
Wonder boy with love of natural world
Frank Ruhrmund sees the ‘Wonders Untold’ exhibition at Morvah, West Cornwall
Recently engaged designing plates and large platters at the Leach Pottery in St Ives, the painter, printmaker and designer Mark Hearld is now making his mark at the Yew Tree Gallery, Morvah, in the exhibition Wonders Untold. Something of a wonder boy himself, as it were, born in York where he lives and works, he developed a deep love for the natural world as a child and this has been the driving force behind his image-making ever since. He studied illustration at Glasgow College of Art and followed this by gaining an M.A. in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art, and it was through the many visits he made at that time to the Drawings Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum that he came under the influence of such C20th artist/designers as John Piper, Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, and Keith Vaughan, all of whom worked from nature and landscape. Since those days, while discovering that working in different disciplines has given his work an enriching cross fertilization, collage, a medium in which he excels, has become of prime importance to him. Recognised for them, with his dexterity in his use of torn or cut paper combined with the fluid brush strokes in his paintings, plus his imagination, he brings both wild and domestic creatures to life in a way which is as astonishing as it is immensely appealing. Curating also happens to be one of his skills; in 2015, he was given the run of the archival collections at York Museum, where he created the exhibition The Lumber Room to national acclaim and three years later, with his own work alongside, he was invited to re-curate the famous Folk Art collection at Compton Verney in Warwickshire. Multi-talented, he writes as well as paints and curates. He already has two books to his credit, A First Book of Nature and Mark Hearld’s Work Book, and following this exhibition he will be enjoying a solo show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park where his new book Raucous Invention: The Joy of Making will be launched.