Mark Hislop’s recent series of paintings reference a broad range of sources and interests, including painting as mark-making, meditation practices, behavioural economics and neuro psychology.

Hislop develops the work through a two-step process that combines instinctive thinking and conscious reasoning. This process, undertaken in the studio, has its beginnings in a gestural action of spilling, pouring and manipulating paint on canvas – performed quickly and without revision. It is a process that happens horizontally – on the floor or a table – it is intuitive and relies on instinct and experience.

The second step of Hislop’s artmaking process is slower and requires a conscious and logical series of decisions. The paintings are moved from the floor to the wall. The images are painted in a series of often transparent layers using spray paint and stencils that remove the artist’s hand. These second-step images reference light filters, lens’ and scientific infographics-mediated images. These two ways of thinking can be described as automatic and controlled.