Before the Fall started from a memory of playing snooker and watching the ball reach the rounded edge of the pocket, just before it drops and disappears. I was interested in that small moment of suspension, where the ball seems to sit between being there and being gone.
I wanted to hold onto that moment but remove it from the table. The yellow ball rests within the deep red, with the light and shadow giving it a strange sense of distance. There's a suggestion of something familiar beyond the game, but I wanted that to remain just out of reach.
Original, one of one
Signed
Carved Styrofoam, spray paint and snooker ball, 30 × 40 cm
Framed in oak, 31 × 41 cm overall
Mark Purves (born 22 February 1982, Edinburgh, Scotland) creates paintings that challenge the traditional flatness of the painted surface. With a background in sculpture, his practice combines painting with embedded objects such as marble spheres, chandelier droplets and found materials, blurring the boundary between image and object.
Working from photographs and collected imagery, Purves explores absence, memory and perception through layered surfaces. He transforms common human movements into a psychological space, revealing the tensions and intentions hidden beneath familiar social behaviours.
Before the Fall started from a memory of playing snooker and watching the ball reach the rounded edge of the pocket, just before it drops and disappears. I was interested in that small moment of suspension, where the ball seems to sit between being there and being gone.
I wanted to hold onto that moment but remove it from the table. The yellow ball rests within the deep red, with the light and shadow giving it a strange sense of distance. There's a suggestion of something familiar beyond the game, but I wanted that to remain just out of reach.
Original, one of one
Signed
Carved Styrofoam, spray paint and snooker ball, 30 × 40 cm
Framed in oak, 31 × 41 cm overall
Mark Purves (born 22 February 1982, Edinburgh, Scotland) creates paintings that challenge the traditional flatness of the painted surface. With a background in sculpture, his practice combines painting with embedded objects such as marble spheres, chandelier droplets and found materials, blurring the boundary between image and object.
Working from photographs and collected imagery, Purves explores absence, memory and perception through layered surfaces. He transforms common human movements into a psychological space, revealing the tensions and intentions hidden beneath familiar social behaviours.