Mark Wingrave (Australia)

BIO//

Mark Wingrave is a Melbourne-based artist in Australia using translation to make paintings about writing. Translation is his subject matter, he observes it in the manner a landscape painter observes a river. Translating requires close reading, seeing into the writer’s mind to make another poem. This work is his raw experience, you can almost touch it. In sum, translation produces art materials to work with. His paintings mix associations with abstraction, architectural forms: windows, light and shadow, gaps in fences, positive and negative space like the optical illusion of two faces and a vase. His recent drawings develop a drama of unstable forms, transparent colours overlap and their edges blur as if displaced.

PROJECT//

While at Narva Mark Wingrave will work with Estonian poet Larissa Joonas and translate a group of her poems from Russian into English. At the same time he plans a series of paintings that echo this process. The residency will culminate in an exhibition and reading where writing and painting, Russian and English will coexist and overlap. The painter and writer expect interesting connections to take place. For instance, Larissa writes of dreams and air going beyond borders, while he paints positive and negative forms that appear to exchange places. Their project will reflect on the discrete work of painter, poet and their shared involvement in translation. What’s more it will highlight that translation not only promotes cultural understanding, but also transforms art.