Contemporary artist MJ Illingworth lives in the Scottish Borders. Mark has worked in a variety of occupations around the UK and resumed painting in his thirties. He is now an artist full-time and is self-taught. 

Statement
Art and music for me combine magically. Over the years, my experience in meditation has also brought my mind closer to breathing music, so that it can flow through me in my art. The art produced is the output at the end of each audio journey. The art is not the music or the journey; it is the visual experience resulting from the mixture of the two.
 
I work on canvas, the larger the better, and choose music appropriate to the mood of the art to be produced, to the state of mind required and to my perception of the piece to be painted. I use the music to develop my characters of light, dark, colour, shape, form and texture to unfold; just like in a movie. And for me the director of each work, the music is the soundtrack. Just as music helps to hook the viewer into the feelings and emotions of the movie, the soundtrack I work to locks me into the full artistic depths within, to let them emerge on the canvas. The process is not trance-like in any way, if anything, it is like the single-pointed concentration used in meditation, and with total clarity of thought; undistracted.
 
The music flows, my art flows; the paint, the palette knives, the brushes all dance and glide with the audio journey. I tend to try and use music which is mixed, DJ’d, or collections of music that are engineered in an order that has some purpose, a journey, rather than disjointed random tunes. This means that I can get into a seamless flow of energy. The result in my paintings is an encapsulated artistic passion and compassion; an outward creative reflection.
 
The full range of work by MJ Illingworth can be seen in the gallery at his website http://www.ifitrains.com (if it rains dot com).
 
The website also contains an up to date list of solo and mixed exhibitions.
 
Contact
Email: mark@ifitrains.com
Tel: 07968 960663