Mark Wearne - 2026
Mark Wearne is a contemporary artist whose practice explores the emotive power of abstraction and the expressive potential of mixed media. Born in Cornwall and trained in Interior Design at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham (1979), Mark’s creative journey has evolved from architectural precision to exploration in paint, from structure to sensation.
For many years, he worked as a freelance architectural illustrator, working on large contracts including Harrods, Selfridges and Heathrow Terminal 5. He also put much creative energy into promoting and designing for Rhythms of the World, the popular music festival in Hitchin. He instigated the Street Art Projects involving local schools in creating public art for the festival most notably the Dream Catcher, a monumental installation involving nine primary schools, transforming Windmill Hill into a colourful canvas of collective imagination.
Attended the year long Defining Practice course at Newlyn School of Art in Cornwall and three abstract landscape courses.
Abstraction in art is the art of allusion, an impression that invokes a feeling and response in the viewer. The viewer is participating in the creative process from which each will take their own meaning. The artwork is a moment in time, a journey not a destination.
Now, from his studio in the loft of his home in Hitchin, he is embarked on this journey. Often inspired by the wildness of the Cornish coast and the abstract expressionism of the St Ives School artists, the interplay of light and architectural form, intrinsic after years as an illustrator, also inform his work.
Mark continually experiments in pursuit of meaning in paint.
Exhibitions and awards:
Solo Exhibition ‘Off the Road’ Hitchin Museum (2000)
Ongoing exhibitions at The Wynd Gallery, Letchworth
Winner of the Wynd Gallery Artist of the Year award 2025
Make Space Gallery, Hitchin, Sept ’25
Solo exhibition ‘‘Adventures in Paint’ at North Herts Museum, Hitchin, November 2025