John Stark Rainier Cherries, 2024

John Stark was born in 1979, London and graduated from the Royal Academy Schools London in 2004. He currently lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. Stark's Paintings integrate styles and themes from recent and past artistic traditions to form his own system of meaning. His paintings of enigmatic figures in hauntingly beautiful landscapes often reflect an ill-fated world struggling with the dissonance of spirituality, materiality, religion and science. From dreamy landscapes populated by witches, monks, skeletons, beekeepers and lepers to crumbling alcoves and dank forest floor still-lifes, Stark conjures a Neo-Medieval world of magical realism imbued by imagination, the personal and the political. Themes of Memento Mori, the transience of life through Nature Morte and the psychology of fear have become deeper concerns in recent work.