Mark Francis (Irish, b. 1962)Mark Francis was born in Northern Ireland in 1962. He studied at St. Martin’s School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art, both in London. Francis is a painter strongly influenced by images from a variety of scientific fields. Francis creates soft, photographic representations of biological forms, with no visible brushwork. The images he creates are a fairly new phenomenon, due to the invention of the electron microscope. Francis often draws upon that which is unseen by the naked eye, while pushing the boundaries of the painted surface.In his Pendulum series, Francis creates landscapes of sound waves. The waves seem to be hanging from a string, floating just on the surface of the canvas. Working within an almost monochromatic framework, and marrying smooth seductive surfaces with an array of agitated marks, fissures and submerged lines. Francis creates paintings that seem to be continually in motion, moving between aggression and acquiescence, flirting with awkwardness but ultimately compelling in their hypnotic liquid rhythms.Francis is included in collections at the Metropolitan Museum, NY; the St. Louis Museum, MO; the Young Memorial Museum, CA; the Museum of Modern Art Miami, FL; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; the Machida City Museum of Graphic Art, Tokyo; the Saatchi Gallery, London; the Tate Gallery, London; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland; and the Ulster Museum, Ireland.