Mark Sofilas

Artist

My paintings are very heavily guided by the emotions a particular scene or a moment evokes in me. It’s a feeling that I try to convey to the viewer.

It might be something as simple as smoke drifting from a chimney pot or silhouette created by a particular light source. It may be the strength or history, which emanates from an everyday object or piece of architecture.

Over time I’ve discovered that I can best achieve this by exaggerating/enhancing colour, manipulating perspective slightly & pushing shape & form to arrive, hopefully, at a nicely balanced place, where the image created has not only captured the physical qualities of the scene, but more importantly, the feeling of the occasion.

I’m a self taught painter & not locked into approaching my work with any particular procedure or direction in mind.

However, I take photographs of my subjects, but like to rely on memory & imagination, the ultimate goal being, to recreate exactly what I’m feeling onto a flat surface.

I don’t do preliminary drawings, instead I prefer to adopt a more organic approach & design the painting as I go. This helps the end product retain a freshness & feeling of spontaneity.

I always have an image & mood in my mind’s eye that I’m trying to put down and I find that working this way allows me to be flexible & go with any happy accidents that more than likely will occur. It’s these little surprises that I can adopt & learn from & take into my next painting.

I enjoy the journey that this direct & unstructured approach takes me on & find that it enables me to either get close to achieving what I had in mind & heart or on occasion, arrive somewhere unexpected but as rewarding.

I paint full time from my studio in Leeds and have developed a reputation and following for my original oil paintings of the beautiful Yorkshire countryside, particularly coastal scenes of the Heritage Coast, such as the fishing villages of Staithes, Robin Hood’s Bay and Whitby.