Mark Rowan-Hull has been a successful artist, performer, speaker and educator. After graduating from Staffordshire University, Mark started a career in psychiatry resettling severely mentally ill people back into the community. Mark quickly became fascinated in the powerful effect music and art could play in healthcare and on the mind, a subject which continues in his work. Throughout this time he became fascinated with the interrelationship between visual art, music and poetry.

In this quest he befriended the great British artist John Piper and his wife, the librettist and art critic Myfanwy Piper both of whom contributed to Benjamin Britten’s seminal Operas and became mentors to him. Mark then went to East Anglia quickly becoming an arts co-ordinator and a freelance artist. Using his experience of working in a healthcare setting he went on to work in schools, day centres and hospitals, to facilitate and orchestrate workshops creating artwork and music and collaborating with Orchestras and composers. Mark then embarked on an intellectual understanding of colour in music and visualising music, later leading to a continuing fascination with the music of the Synaesthete composer Olivier Messiaen. This led to performances with commissioned Images at the South Bank and throughout Britain, and collaborating with Scientists, musicologists and musicians most notably at the Music and the Mind festival at the University of London and further events are planned for the Messiaen Centenary in 2008.

Along the way Mark exhibited and conducted a series of highly acclaimed exhibitions called Seeing Music, Hearing Colour throughout the U.K selling paintings to clients such as numerous international collectors and institutions as well as notably, the Poet and Critic Tom Paulin and the world Virtuoso musician Dame Gillian Weir whom he went on to design CD covers for her comprehensive releases of Messiaen’s work. In order to publicise his ideas of visualising music Mark has embarked on a series of exciting performances and events involving painting live on stage to music by composers such as Messiaen, Scriabin, Debussy, Shostakovich and George Crumb and Jazz music by Gerard Presencer. These have led to reviews and many broadcasts and interviews on BBC Radio 3.

Most recently in 2007 Mark has contributed to the exhibition "Eye Music" an exhibition which includes work by artists whose work has responded to music such as Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrain and Paolozzi. This has involved performances with the Coull Quartet and the Allegri Quartet at both the Pallant House in Chichester and the Sainsbury centre in Norwich. The work produced during these events will be shown throughout 2008.

Recent works by the visual artist Mark Rowan-Hull have taken their impetus from the music and in particular that of the French composer Olivier Messiaen and have been inspired by the theme, Synaesthesia, the joining of senses. Mark Rowan-Hull is interested when there is a joining of the visual and auditory (colour and musical) senses. His recent work has evolved into performance, where he has created images live onstage with musicians. Collaborations include the Coull Quartet, The Allegri Quartet, Pianists Peter Hill and Helen Reid, Dame Gillian Weir, Peter Skaevard Sheppard, and the great Jazz trumpeter Gerard Presencer.

Most recently Rowan-Hull performed at the Royal Academy of Music with the Cellist Neil Heyd and Oboist Chris Redgate. This was filmed and starts an ongoing collaboration with Filmmaker Colin Still for Optic Nerve films.

Exhibitions
2005-6 Royal Academy of Music, London
2005 Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
2005 Newcastle University
2005 Wolfson College, Oxford
2004 Templeton College, Oxford
2004 Jaqualine Du Pre Building, Oxford.
2003 Bloomsbury Theatre, London
2002 Worcester Cathedral, Worcester
2002 Department of Economics, Oxford
University
2002 St James, Piccadilly London
2001-5 Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University
2003 Wolfson College, Oxford University.
2002-5 Jacoby Gallery, Cleveland Ohio
2001 Wolfson College, Oxford University
2000 Byrom House, Manchester
1999 Linacre College, Oxford University
1998 Wolfson College, Oxford University
1997 Linacre College, Oxford University
1996- 77 Cornhill, London
1995 Reading Museum and Art Gallery, Reading
1991 Stoke on Trent Museum and Art Gallery

Group Exhibitions
2007Eye Music, Pallant House Gallery and Sainsbury Centre.
2004 Reading Museum and Art Gallery. Photographs of John and Myfanwy Piper's House
2002 Buckinghamshire Museum and Art Gallery
2000, 1999, 1998 Wiseman Gallery, Oxford
1996, 1995, 1994 Bohun Gallery
(with John Piper & Eileen Cooper) Henley On Thames, Oxfordshire.
1996 Reading Museum & Art Gallery, Reading
1995 Suffolk College, Ipswich, Suffolk
1995 Warehouse Artist Studios Open, Norwich
1992Fresh ArtBusiness Design Centre, Islington, London
1991Agora Contemporary Arts, Chester, Cheshire.

Artist in Residence

2003-4 Oxford Philomusica. Awarded Youth Music Grant to work in Schools, Health Centres and Day Care Centres “Improvisation Through Colour”
2002-3 Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square (Children ages 5-8)
2002 South Bank, London
1997-98 Reading Museum and Art Gallery, Berkshire
1994-96 Suffolk Rural Arts Fund, Eastern Arts, Suffolk
1992-94 United Bristol Healthcare Trust, Bristol


Private Collections (in brief)
University of Oxford. Linacre College, St Hugh's College, Department of Economics.
University College London
Granada Television.
Prudential
East West Management Mayfair, London.
Tom Paulin (Poet and Art Critic)
Dame Gillian Weir
Professor Martin Kemp.
Professor Vincent Walsh.
Proffesor Anya Hurlbert.