Interview with Mark Wardel

q)Walk us through an intimate day in your life

a) I lead a rather quiet and work focussed life these days in contrast to the decadence and  clubbing madness of the 80s and 90s and since I stopped drinking I am an early riser although it does take several cups of very strong tea to jump start my heart.

 I spend an hour or so catching up with emails, bills and social media etc. before heading off to my studio which is literally around the block from my flat in East London and is where I spend most of my day painting and working on any other projects or commissions I may currently have on the go. I try to visit the gym once or twice a week and have just started doing a yoga class which is in the same complex as my studio.

I may hook up with friends such as Boy George to talk over future projects or head out to an art opening or dinner with friends before sometimes returning to the studio to carry on working at night.

I am a big reader of biographies and non fiction and always read a few chapters before going to sleep.

q) Where did you grow up/where do you live now and how does that contribute to your art?

a) I haven't grown up, I don't think artists ever really do!

I came from New Brighton, a small seaside town near Liverpool but have lived in many places, the longest has been London where I have lived since 1978.

q) What is your earliest memory that propelled you to create?

a)Being an only child without parents or siblings, drawing was always my way of filling my life and my time.

q) Tell us a little bit about your creative process.

a) I am obsessed with striking depictions of the human face and figure and I work from photographs that I have either taken myself or found in magazines or online. I very rarely directly copy a photograph but will collage together elements from different sources to create a unique image which has been filtered through my aesthetic sensibility which  I then use as source material for a painting which I execute in a semi photo-realistic style in acrylic and oil paint on canvas.

Purely as a diversion and as an exercise in become less rigidly obsessive in my work I have recently started making some paintings based on peoples FaceBook "selfies", large works in a slightly looser style in mixed media on paper which seem to be evolving into something of a series.

q) How do you wish for your art to be perceived?

a) I can't control how it is perceived. I just paint for my own personal reasons, put it out there and hope it resonates in the wider context either on an emotional or even just purely on an aesthetic level with people.

q) What do your internal dialogues sound like?

a) like all artists, a mixture of crippling self doubt fighting with rampant egotism.

q) Do you feel that there are limitations to what you want to create?

a) I'm really only now learning that we are only limited in what we can create by our own minds, our bank managers....and the authorities!

q) Do you feel art is vital to survival and if so, why?

a) I do, and the fact that the need to create and view art has been constant throughout human history and civilisation  proves that we do need it and that it may perhaps serve some obscure evolutionary purpose.

q) Describe a world without art.

a) A planet I don't wish to visit.

q) Tell us a secret, and obsession.

a) No.

q) Where can people see more of your work on the internet?

a) my website www.trademarkart.com is currently being re-designed and I will soon be launching a new website www.markwardel.com

in the meantime I am on twitter @TradeMarkArt and Facebook as Mark Wardel