Pop Art is Dead (Mark Cowell)

About the artist

Pop Art Is Dead is run by Mark Cowell, a creative nomad who has been painting on and off since the early 1990s. Mark's formal career began in 1994 with a focus on community art and development, leading mural workshops with children and young people across Queensland, and pioneering the transition from a paint-by-numbers approach to facilitating community-led design, now considered the norm.

Mark's personal practice followed his mural painting and emerged as a device to subvert or distract his interest in painting graffiti. While graffiti lettering and typography in general play a large role in his work, Mark draws inspiration from the hand-drawn comics, illustration and poster design of past decades. His work plays with these recognised styles, and the combination of heavily textured, industrialised or DIY mark-making materials.

Outside of art, his career has been guided by the creative thinking skills developed through his art practice and has led to diverse careers in advertising and media strategy, training design, program design and work in the community and social sectors. Pop Art Is Dead is an art-based business that provides services including:
-Visual Facilitation and Scribing
-Workshop design and facilitation
-Mural painting
-Collaborative and Community-led Mural Facilitation
-Original Artwork
-Illustration

Artist's work