Mark Powell’s Pen Drawings Accentuate the Memories Etched into Faces and Ephemera

Art
History

#drawing
#maps
#Mark Powell
#pen
#portraits

Mark Powell’s Pen Drawings Accentuate the Memories Etched into Faces and Ephemera

January 31, 2024

Grace Ebert

All images © Mark Powell, shared with permission

In Mark Powell’s tender portraits, crinkled eyes and foreheads creased with age mirror highways and scrawled cursive notes. The artist (previously) pairs meticulously detailed drawings of older subjects with stamped envelopes, vintage book pages, and maps weathered from use, superimposing faces onto the worn, often collaged, substrates. Producing immense depth and shadow with the humble ballpoint pen, Powell likens the stories and experiences hidden in a face to those held within a letter or note from days gone by.

If you’re in Paris, you can see the artist’s solo exhibition Roads That Make Us through February 3 at Loo & Lou Gallery. Shop prints and originals on his site, and find news about upcoming shows, including at Mad24 in Madrid, on Instagram.

#drawing
#maps
#Mark Powell
#pen
#portraits

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