Mark Cazalet is a dynamic artist and personality.The energy and enthusiasm in his art, conversation and, by repute, in his teaching at the Royal Drawing School, where he
is a Senior Fellow, makes him a notable presence within the contemporary arts scene, in
all its richness and complexity.Yet his artistic development has followed a singular path,
out of step with conceptualism, identity politics or digitalisation. His chosen media may
be traditional, but his awareness of the texture and feel of everyday life is intensely modern. Whether travelling abroad or on home territory, he is alert to the surface appearances of things and in his treatment of them seeks out further meanings. Looking at his art, one sometimes feels that everything seems to shimmer with vitality, whether he is drawing the life of a city recently released from occupation, translating his study of gardens in Kyoto into collages, or making pastel drawings in a familiar wood at night.

As with most romantics, the enviable ingredient is the ease with which inner feeling enters into dialogue with the outer world. Mark is also very alert to lived experience, whether it is generated through a study of nature or by the hectic activity of city life.
But he also brings to his creative work a sense of the numinous, owing to his reflective, reverent, and questioning habits of thought. In addition, his mind is quick and well cultivated, especially in relation to poetry, theology, and art.

It is recent years, his mark-making has become freer and more vigorous. He has also become a significant colourist, his expanded range of hues giving to his larger abstracts an unexpected grandeur. It is a pleasure to welcome this artist to Clare Hall. It gives us the opportunity to experience the rich tapestry of his art amid our daily lives. Many will feel enriched or energised by this.The Art Committee had been delighted to co-operate with him over the making of this show, coming as it does in the wake of a difficult period.

Professor Frances Spalding, Chair of the Art Committee