Mark Shields RUA
Mark Shields was born in Newtownards, Co. Down and studied at the University of Ulster. He has exhibited extensively and has held numerous solo exhibitions, in Berlin, Cape Town, Dublin, Belfast and London, where the Grosvenor Gallery have held nine solo exhibitions of his work since 1997. His most recent exhibition, ‘Host’, was shown jointly in London between the Grosvenor Gallery and Browse and Darby and was described by Galleries magazine as “quite remarkable, in our materialist age, in the insistence of its enquiry into the nature of spirituality…the final effect is of a monumental solemnity and seriousness…”. He has also exhibited at the Mall Galleries, the Royal Academy of Arts, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Ulster Academy, The Royal Hibernian Academy and the National Gallery of Ireland. Additionally, his paintings have featured in international events such as the Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art, the Basel Art Fair in Switzerland and the 2001 Nashville Exchange Exhibition. He has been an award winner at the Discerning Eye exhibition, the BP Portrait Award Exhibition and the RHA and has participated in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Hunting Art Prize Exhibition at the Royal College of Art. In 2002 he was elected an academician at the Royal Ulster Academy where he has received both the gold and silver medals. Paintings by Mark Shields can be found in numerous collections including the National Gallery of Ireland, the Ulster Museum, the Arts Council for Northern Ireland, the Ulster Television Collection and the National Self–Portrait Collection of Ireland, as well as in many private collections both in the U.K and abroad. His commissioned portraits include the Prince of Wales for the Royal Gurka Regiment, Dr Ian Paisley for the Parliamentary Art Collection at the House of Commons and Nicholas and Mary Robinson for the National Gallery of Ireland. For further information visit www.markshieldsartist.com