Mark Rae creates expansive abstract paintings that are designed to take up the viewer’s field of vision and invoke the experience of pareidolia: the tendency of humans to see faces, objects or meaning where there is none.

The title of each painting, a combination of anagrams and cryptic statements, gives clues to Rae’s diverse preoccupations: from ancient history, philosophy, religion, quantum physics and biological processes to the cryptography of John Dee and Francis Bacon.

You can find out more about Mark’s art practice in this interview.

image: Mark Rae, In the Eye of the Tempest… Unable to Build or Steer Your Aura, 2019, acrylic on panel, 120 x 240 cm, photo: Daniel Kristjansson, courtesy the artist