Mark Metcalfe
b. 1971, United Kingdom
Mark Metcalfe is a British artist and printmaker based in London, United Kingdom. His most recent work encompasses the reconstructions and reinterpretations of existing stories, characters and events from humanity’s collective memories and histories. Through reinterpreting archetypal tropes of allegorical and mythological subjects in art history, Metcalfe creates ‘characters’ that challenge the fixed ideas of trust, faith and the unknown.
Metcalfe’s work encapsulates deep symbolism to externalise the hidden through the characterisation of nostalgia and memory. He believes that the depictions of archetypal heroes, tricksters and bizarre phenomena posit a powerful melancholic peculiarity, playing around with ideas of the familiar and the unknown. Each piece is filled with familiar archetypes, dramas of grace, religious iconography, binaries of good and evil, and recognizable emblems, whilst also implying a new visual language of myth and allegory in a contemporary age. Metcalfe’s incisive characterisation and unparalleled sense of animation prompts viewers to uncover the unfathomable truths 'lying beneath' the veneer and facade of the exterior human image.