(photo credit; Raphael Soltero)
Mark Soltero is an artist living and working in Ōtautahi, Christchurch.
Mark’s practice is built around an intense drawing process. Working with hand-drawn and found images, processed in the computer and scaled, transferred and intricately hand traced and stencilled before paint is applied with squeegees or large brushes. While individual marks may be visible on close viewing, the image is read as a single mark.
In essence my paintings are history paintings that examine relationships between image, memory and materiality. Many of the images border on dissolution, fragmenting or breaking down in contrast to the seemingly smooth images that saturate our lived experience. I make works that draw audiences in, yet are challenging to look at. To a certain extent, the work explores the experience of Derrida’s concept of différance, in time.
Mark holds an MFA – Dunedin School of Art, a B.Design–Ara Institute of Canterbury and PGDipTchg, Art & Art History–NZGSE. Mark is a member of the Art Associates Aotearoa collective. He was awarded the inaugural Head of School Award for Excellence in Post-Graduate Drawing from the Dunedin School of Art in 2014. He has been a finalist in the National Contemporary Art Awards three times, twice a finalist in the Adam Portraiture Award. Mark completed the Foyer Wall Commission for the Asburton Art Gallery in 2021 and has exhibited at the Centre of Contemporary Art (2009, 2018-2019), ArtsPost Waikato Museum (2011), Chambers Art Gallery (2019, 2021, 2023) and Ashburton Art Gallery (2021).
Mark is represented by;
Chambers Art Gallery
80 Durham Street South, Christchurch
Artfull.co.nz – a curated online gallery generating Connection & Cultivation
McAtamney Gallery
40a Talbot Street, Geraldine