Viewing room

ART Mart!

Mark Denton

Jealous East

06 Jul 2017 — 16 Jul 2017

Jealous and COY! Communications are extremely proud to present ‘ART Mart!’ – The Graphic Works of Mark Denton Esq. ‘ART Mart!’ at Jealous East will be Denton’s most ambitious artistic outing yet, bringing together graphic projects such as the ‘Not Nice’ world of ‘Evil Farms’ (in association with the celebrated animation company A Large Evil Corporation) featuring fruits of a suspect supermarket, nestled alongside a vision of cobalt blue-faced beauty, in the ‘Chinese Girl (from Croydon)’ collection.

On the surface his world can appear both simple and puerile, but Denton’s relentless dedication to the tiniest detail of his realisations create the sensation of having entered a parallel universe where the darkly comic is suddenly made real. The award winning director and artist has been an unstoppable creative force in the advertising industry for nearly 40 years, and now he will be presenting his first solo exhibition at Jealous East. The exhibition will stage his eclectic portfolio of his work from photography, moving image to sculpture and installation work, together with launching 3 new limited print editions produced at Jealous Print Studio, plus extra special artefacts and creative mementos.

The award winning director and artist has been an unstoppable creative force in the advertising industry for nearly 40 years.

Exploring the weird and wonderful brain of Mark Denton Esq. in a unique and interactive environment, prepare for the gallery to be transformed as never seen before. Pulling out all the stops, the space will be completely unrecognisable for this exclusive 2 week exhibition.

Mark Denton

uk based artist

Mark Denton was born in Greenwich, London, into a large family of scrap merchants. Everyone worked at G.F. Denton & Sons; Father, Mother, Uncles, Aunties, Denton and all of his siblings.
After yet another acid burn, aged 15, from a lorry load of car batteries, Mark decided the materials reclamation world was not for him. He enrolled at Ravensbourne’s School of Vocational Studies (without the required qualifications to get into the main college) where he studied graphics, photography and technical drawing.
Following an unglamorous start as a paste-up artist on the magazine ‘Knitter’s Digest’, Denton secured a job as an assistant typographer and visualiser at the London office of the American advertising agency, Leo Burnett. In less than a decade, Mark found himself as the Creative Director of his own agency and one of the most awarded Art Directors on the planet.
Then came a foray into directing TV commercials and a return to his first love, graphic design. Forever seeking new forms of self-expression, Mark kept busy designing everything in his world. Clothes, jewellery, wallpaper, furniture, the labels on his tins of beans; nothing was spared his artist’s eye.
Grasping every opportunity to expand his universe, found Mark juggling many hats; Mexican-wrestling fight Promoter, book and magazine Publisher, theatrical Producer and male model to name a few.
Over his expansive career, his artistic flights of fancy have been exhibited across the globe, notably at ‘The Power of the Poster’ exhibition at the V&A and as a ‘living exhibit’ under the name of Nobby Bottomshuffle (one of his many alter-egos) at the National Football Museum in Manchester.
In 2018 two of Mark’s works were chosen for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London and went on to be featured on BBC TV.