ARTIST MARK WYATT

"Most people would start there," Mark Wyatt said circling the middle of a canvas with his fingertips.

“What they should do is start there,” he said, pointing at the top left corner of one of his landscapes. “Otherwise, you get overwhelmed.”

The studio has recently been opened by Mark’s mate, Wayne Galley, who mixes vintage furniture and décor pieces with art in the freshly painted space. It has been the first time Mark, an Imbil local, has displayed his paintings in public.

Until now, they have been a creative escape, a personal challenge, and gifts for family. Since his paintings went on show, he has had compliments and criticism

Until now, they have been a creative escape, a personal challenge, and gifts for family. Since his paintings went on show, he has had compliments and criticism and accepts the former as well as the latter. “I like the fact that people come to look and say, “320? That’s s..t,’” he said. “I like it. It’s in the eye of the beholder. I do what I feel.”

Mark, 53, used to watch his grandfather draw cartoon characters as a kid but only picked up a paintbrush in recent years. His inspiration was Wayne Clements, a self-taught professional painter of original oil works whose how-to-paint television show, Art Studio, has twice been nominated for a Logie award. Mark thought if Wayne could do it, so could he. Using Wayne’s step-by-step approach, he “builds” his paintings, starting from a small part of the canvas, filling in the background, layering until he has a foreground.

Mark, whose bread and butter is handyman work, describes himself as a lazy painter. “It’s just something that happens when I get bored. You’ve got to be in the right mindset,” he said. “Sometimes, I’ll go and sit down and start painting and three hours have gone by and you think it’s only been 10 minutes.”

Mark’s paints the way he lives his life. If he feels like doing something, he does it, because he cannot see the point of living life any other way. When he tells you about his life, you can understand why.

After growing up in Brisbane and at Yuleba, near Roma, in southwest Qld, Mark, a promising young rugby league player, went to Sydney to trial for Penrith but it did not work out. A mate who had left to play cricket in England at the same time as Mark went to Sydney was killed in a car accident on his way from the airport to his new club.

Mark returned to Brisbane, went to TAFE and was doing an electrical apprenticeship when he was almost killed in a workplace accident. He was working four-storeys high when a rope caught his leg and dragged him over the side of the building. In the fraction of a moment before he slammed on to the ground, he decided he was going to die.

“I knew it was all over. It was very selfish of me. I was thinking of all the things I wouldn’t be able to do,” he said. “It was Friday afternoon, I was going to go bowling, and then it all went black.”

He remembers people standing over him, and then he remembers waking up in hospital where he told his mother and said, “Mum, I just found out I could fly.”

Since then, Mark has not waited around to find out what he can and cannot do. He fell in love with a bowler, Monica. They bought a takeaway business at Bli Bli.

They decided they wanted to get out of surburbia and found Imbil, there they live on a few acres with a couple of rescue dogs and two guest horses. And he decided to try and paint. “Look at me. I’m alive. I might as well live life now.”

Interview courtesy Janine Hill, MVV

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