Lot 28 , Mark Pulsford, (b.1951), Double Moon January, 2018, watercolour media on rag paper, 110 x 75 cm.

Mark Pulsford
(b.1951)
Double Moon January, 2018
watercolour media on rag paper
110 x 75 cm.
£2,000-3,000
Mark Pulsford’s series Paintings by Moonlight reflect his lifelong study of our visual responses, in this case, the open form of illusionism called pareildolia, the ‘tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern’. These flickering, shimmering paintings depict the experience of things seen and unseen on moonlit nights as the artist's eyes fully adjust to near-darkness.

Pulsford’s approach to mark-making and the importance for him of direct experience can be seen in his series of studies, In the Presence of Tintoretto, the result of more than a hundred hours in the Scuola Grade di San Rocco, Venice, making images in response to the 16th-century master.

Born into a family of artists in Edinburgh, Pulsford’s father was the artist and educationist Charles Pulsford (1912-1989) and his mother the stained-glass designer Bronwen Gordon (b.1922-2014); his brother is the painter, Benedict Pulsford. After attending Edinburgh College of Art, Mark Pulsford studied at Sittingbourne College in Kent under Carole Robb and Rose Wylie. His own teaching career has encompassed secondary schools, the Kent Institute of Art & Design, and London Metropolitan University; he is also a founding faculty member of the Rome Art Program. He lives and works in St Leonards-on-Sea with his wife, Sarah Jane Morris, singer-songwriter and band leader.