ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 28th May 2025

58 42 MARK FRANCIS (B.1962) Cilia Oil and acrylic on canvas, 153 x 122cm (60¼ x 48¼’’) Signed, inscribed and dated 2002 verso Provenance: With Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, label verso € 12,000 - 16,000 Mark Francis’ early interest in mycology and other aspects of botany indicated his fasci- nation with the implicit, often invisible workings of the natural world, including human beings. From the early 1990s, this fascination led his painting into realms beyond the bounds of conventional human vision. Rather than simply illustrating the hidden worlds revealed by, notably, microscopes and telescopes of various kinds and capabilities, his paintings reach for a metaphorical grasp of what these expanded fields of perception tell us about the world of which we are a part, and about the nature of reality itself. Here the title, Cilia , refers to the hair-like protrusions evident in most cells. While it was long appreciated that there were several kinds of cilia, it was only rather late in the day (towards the end of the 1990s) that the significance of the so-called primary cilia was realised across a range of vital cellular functions, so the painting has a certain timely currency. The strange, hallucinatory cellular domain became dramatically visible during the 20th century with the development of the scanning electron microscope. Francis’ painting plunges us into this otherworldly, sci-fi, micrographic territory. With vertical and horizontal sweeps, he builds a layered network of complex interconnectivity, evoking constantly dynamic processes. The sharp focus of the foreground elements suggests a diagrammatic clarity, but yet never dispels a feeling of underlying, ominous mystery. Born in Newtownards, Francis studied at St Martin’s and Chelsea in London, and has been based in London since. His work was included in the Royal Academy’s exhibition of work from the Saatchi Collection, Sensation, in 1997, and he has exhibited consistently and extensively nationally and internationally, including regularly at the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin. Aidan Dunne, April 2025