Mark D
Encyclopedia
Mark D, born Mark Randall, is a British
artist and punk musician (guitarist and songwriter). He is also associated with the Stuckist
group of artists.
. He now lives in Nottingham
. From university onwards, Mark D (D standing for "degenerate") played in various bands including the Fat Tulips
, Confetti
(when he was known as David), the Pleasure Heads (when he was known as Mark Randyhead), Oscar, Servalan and Sundress, and appeared on dozens of releases. He published and edited fanzines, including the underground C86 fanzine Two Pint Take Home. He is a co-owner of Heaven Records.
The Fat Tulips were formed in 1987 and have been described as "incredibly skilled in the art of buzzing electric guitars, ferocious tempos, pristine pop melodies and lyrics that weren’t nearly as sweet as they sounded at first listen."
A few years after the Fat Tulips broke up in the mid-1990s, he started a dealership in art and antiques with his wife, Tully, focusing on work from the 1960s and 1970s, including John Piper
, Stig Lindberg
, Lucienne Day
and John Clappison
.
An interest in the music of Billy Childish
led onto Childish's paintings, which he acquired, and subsequently also the work of other artists in the Stuckist group. He contacted two artists who had been exhibited by the Stuckists, Stella Vine
and Gina Bold
, both of whom refused to sell him work, because of his connection with Childish. Vine responded with an email, which said, "Go fuck yourself".
Frustrated at not being able to acquire that work for his collection and inspired by an Andy Warhol
quote, "If you want to sell paintings you have to make paintings", Mark D began in May 2005 to make his own paintings, for which he had no formal training or qualifications ("my only qualification is a love of art"). He was encouraged and given advice by Stuckist co-founder, Charles Thomson
, without whom Mark D said, "I could easily have given up on doing my own work."
His paintings make visual and verbal comments on well-known figures in the art world, starting with Billy Childish, Tracey Emin
, Stella Vine
and Damien Hirst
. He describes Emin as "without doubt a very talented artist whose work I greatly admire." In response to the controversy over the Tate
's purchase of its trustee Chris Ofili
's work, The Upper Room
, he painted a picture of the Tate Chairman, Paul Myners
—who had defended the purchase—called The Hypocrisy of Myners. A reproduction of this work was featured on a placard outside the Turner Prize
in December 2005 during a Stuckist demonstration against the purchase.
Mark D first exhibited in September 2005 with the Stuckists at La Viande gallery, Shoreditch, in a show 'Painting Is the Medium of Yesterday"—Paul Myners CBE, Chairman of Tate Gallery, Chairman of Marks and Spencer, Chairman of Aspen Insurance, Chairman of Guardian Media, Director of Bank of England, Director of Bank of New York. A Show of Paintings by the Stuckists, as Refused by the Tate Gallery. Guaranteed 100% Free of Elephant Dung.
His solo show, Mark D and the Stuckists v Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, was at the Art Organisation gallery in March 2007. It included a display of material about Stuckist demonstrations. As well as his own paintings he showed paintings by other Stuckist artists from his collection, which he jointly owns with his wife, Tully, and states is "the world's largest collection of Stuckist paintings".
In February 2008, he staged a show of his paintings, which satirise Stella Vine
's images of Princess Diana and Kate Moss
, replacing the former with Victoria Beckham
and showing Moss eating slugs. The exhibition, held jointly with Abby Jackson
at La Viande gallery in Shoreditch
, London
, was called Disney Heroines Committing Suicide.
He names Alfred Wallis
, John Bellany
, Bryan Pearce
, and Stella Vine
as influences, and sums up his artistic and musical philosophy with a derivation from punk
:
Charles Thomson
described his work as "brilliant punk paintings".
.jpg)
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
artist and punk musician (guitarist and songwriter). He is also associated with the Stuckist
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
group of artists.
Life and work
Mark D was born and spent his childhood in PeterboroughPeterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
. He now lives in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
. From university onwards, Mark D (D standing for "degenerate") played in various bands including the Fat Tulips
Fat Tulips
Fat Tulips were an indie pop band from Nottingham, England who released one album, on the Vinyl Japan label, and over 10 singles on the band's own Heaven Records and others.-History:...
, Confetti
Confetti (band)
Confetti were a British band during the early 1990s.The line-up was "Virginia Aeroplane" and "David", whose real name was Mark Randall. Randall was also known as Mark D of the Fat Tulips and Mark Randyhead of The Pleasureheads; he performed as well in other bands in Peterborough and...
(when he was known as David), the Pleasure Heads (when he was known as Mark Randyhead), Oscar, Servalan and Sundress, and appeared on dozens of releases. He published and edited fanzines, including the underground C86 fanzine Two Pint Take Home. He is a co-owner of Heaven Records.
The Fat Tulips were formed in 1987 and have been described as "incredibly skilled in the art of buzzing electric guitars, ferocious tempos, pristine pop melodies and lyrics that weren’t nearly as sweet as they sounded at first listen."
John Piper (artist)
John Egerton Christmas Piper, CH was a 20th-century English painter and printmaker. For much of his life he lived at Fawley Bottom in Buckinghamshire, near Henley-on-Thames.-Life:...
, Stig Lindberg
Stig Lindberg
Stig Lindberg was a Swedish ceramic designer, glass designer, textile designer, industrial designer, painter, and illustrator....
, Lucienne Day
Lucienne Day
Désirée Lucienne Day RDI was a British textile designer. Inspired by abstract art, she pioneered the use of bright, optimistic, abstract patterns in post-war England, and was eventually celebrated worldwide....
and John Clappison
John Clappison
William John Clappison is an English Ceramic and Glass designerWhen the family moved to Hornsea and John’s father started to support Hornsea Pottery, the founders of the Pottery, Colin and Desmond Rawson, saw great potential in John Clappison...
.
An interest in the music of Billy Childish
Billy Childish
Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...
led onto Childish's paintings, which he acquired, and subsequently also the work of other artists in the Stuckist group. He contacted two artists who had been exhibited by the Stuckists, Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
and Gina Bold
Gina Bold
Gina Boldis an English artist/poet, who makes paintings, stained glass and sculpture. She was an artist in residence at Arlington House from May to November 2007.- Life and work :...
, both of whom refused to sell him work, because of his connection with Childish. Vine responded with an email, which said, "Go fuck yourself".
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
quote, "If you want to sell paintings you have to make paintings", Mark D began in May 2005 to make his own paintings, for which he had no formal training or qualifications ("my only qualification is a love of art"). He was encouraged and given advice by Stuckist co-founder, Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
, without whom Mark D said, "I could easily have given up on doing my own work."
His paintings make visual and verbal comments on well-known figures in the art world, starting with Billy Childish, Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
and Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
. He describes Emin as "without doubt a very talented artist whose work I greatly admire." In response to the controversy over the Tate
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
's purchase of its trustee Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
's work, The Upper Room
The Upper Room (paintings)
The Upper Room is an installation of 13 paintings of rhesus macaque monkeys by English artist Chris Ofili in a specially-designed room. It was bought by the Tate gallery in 2005 from the Victoria Miro Gallery and was the cause of a media furore after a campaign initiated by the Stuckist art group...
, he painted a picture of the Tate Chairman, Paul Myners
Paul Myners
Paul Myners, Baron Myners, CBE was the Financial Services Secretary in HM Treasury, the UK's finance ministry, during the Labour Government of Gordon Brown. He held the position from October 2008 until May 2010, and was made a life peer in consequence of his appointment, as he was not an elected...
—who had defended the purchase—called The Hypocrisy of Myners. A reproduction of this work was featured on a placard outside the Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
in December 2005 during a Stuckist demonstration against the purchase.
In February 2008, he staged a show of his paintings, which satirise Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
's images of Princess Diana and Kate Moss
Kate Moss
Kate Moss is an English model. Moss is known for her waifish figure and popularising the heroin chic look in the 1990s. She is also known for her controversial private life, high profile relationships, party lifestyle, and drug use. Moss changed the look of modelling and started a global debate on...
, replacing the former with Victoria Beckham
Victoria Beckham
Victoria Caroline Beckham is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, model, actress, fashion designer and businesswoman. In the late 1990s, Beckham rose to fame with the all-female pop group Spice Girls and was dubbed Posh Spice by the July 1996 issue of the British pop music magazine Top of the Pops...
and showing Moss eating slugs. The exhibition, held jointly with Abby Jackson
Abby Jackson
Abby Jackson is a British artist, Stuckist painter, writer and art activist.-Life and work:Abby Jackson was born in North Devon and lives and works in London. She attended Somerset College of Art and studied advertising...
at La Viande gallery in Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, was called Disney Heroines Committing Suicide.
He names Alfred Wallis
Alfred Wallis
Alfred Wallis was a Cornish fisherman and artist.Wallis's parents, Charles and Jane Wallis were from Penzance in Cornwall and moved to Devonport, Devon to find work in 1850 where Alfred and his brother Charles were born. Shortly after this the children's mother died and this prompted the family to...
, John Bellany
John Bellany
John Bellany, CBE, RA is a Scottish painter.He was born in Port Seton. During the 1960s, he studied at Edinburgh College of Art and then at the Royal College of Art in London....
, Bryan Pearce
Bryan Pearce
Walter Bryan Pearce was a British painter. He was recognised as one of the UK's leading naïve artists.-Early life:...
, and Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
as influences, and sums up his artistic and musical philosophy with a derivation from punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
:
Some outstanding musicians have proved that all you need are 3 chords and a cheap guitar to come up with a classic. I find it much more interesting to listen to some low budget production record full of life and energy with lots of good ideas, (e.g. early ClashThe ClashThe Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
and Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
, The VaselinesThe VaselinesThe Vaselines are an alternative rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. Formed in 1986, the band was originally a duo between its songwriters Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, but later added James Seenan and Eugene's brother Charlie Kelly on bass and drums respectively from the band Secession. McKee had...
, The White StripesThe White StripesThe White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
and, of course, Billy Childish with the Buff Medways etc.) than some over-produced bland pomp like AthleteAthlete (band)Athlete are a British rock band formed in Deptford, London, comprising Joel Pott , Carey Willetts , Stephen Roberts and Tim Wanstall...
, ColdplayColdplayColdplay are a British alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London. After they formed Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish. Will Champion joined as a...
or U2U2U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
.
Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
described his work as "brilliant punk paintings".
See also
- StuckismStuckismStuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
- The Upper Room (paintings)The Upper Room (paintings)The Upper Room is an installation of 13 paintings of rhesus macaque monkeys by English artist Chris Ofili in a specially-designed room. It was bought by the Tate gallery in 2005 from the Victoria Miro Gallery and was the cause of a media furore after a campaign initiated by the Stuckist art group...
- Fat TulipsFat TulipsFat Tulips were an indie pop band from Nottingham, England who released one album, on the Vinyl Japan label, and over 10 singles on the band's own Heaven Records and others.-History:...
- Confetti (band)Confetti (band)Confetti were a British band during the early 1990s.The line-up was "Virginia Aeroplane" and "David", whose real name was Mark Randall. Randall was also known as Mark D of the Fat Tulips and Mark Randyhead of The Pleasureheads; he performed as well in other bands in Peterborough and...