The buildings we walk by, the corridors we pass through --the often mundane, spaces of everyday life- are revisited through the eyes of artist Mark Farrelly in his latest exhibition, Halcyon Days 2.

In Halcyon Days 2, Farrelly continues to explore his love of architecture and his focus is on the compositional elements that go unnoticed but affect the way we feel about, and move through, public spaces and public buildings that often form a backdrop to our lives.

Farrelly finds beauty in unexpected places, admiring the symmetry created by two arcade machines, the detail on the Art Deco banisters on a flight of stairs, a stack of chairs in an empty food mall and the lines created by pillars intersected by an ascending escalator.

‘We walk through these spaces everyday without noticing the architectural elements – through my art I am paying homage to some humble spaces where I see beauty – through symmetry and organization. I love the detail and the pattern that those structural elements provide,” he says.

Technically his photo-based artworks blur the line between painting and photography. Farrelly plays with colour: de-saturating the photographs that form the foundation of the piece - which are attached collage- style to marine plywood - and using digital processes to selectively add colour. The department store series is linked visually by the use of red and green on key elements.

He also extends the boundaries of the image with paint and paints on and over the photographs. The paint is sanded back and sealed with glaze and shellac, resulting in rich textured pieces.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009 Jackman Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne - Halycon Days 2
2009 Jackman Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne - Halycon Days
2009 Williamstown Festival Award, Melbourne - Finalist
2008 Jackman Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne - Architecture of Light
2007 Jackman Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne - Private Lives
2007 Williamstown Art Prize - Finalist
2006 Jackman Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne - Interiors
2004 Hermon & Hermon, Richmond
2003 Dante's Gallery, Fitzroy - Quiet spaces
2000 Roar Gallery, Fitzroy - Behold the Moment
1998 Vivid image Gallery, Fitzroy
1997 Roar Gallery - Three for all
1997 CCP Summer Salon exhibition
1997 Daimaru Gallery, Melbourne - Chimerical Vistas
1996 Spleen Gallery, Melbourne - Vespers
1996 Convent Gallery, Daylesford
1996 Gary McEwan Gallery, St Kilda Group Exhibitions
1995 RMIT Graduate exhibition
1995 The lounge, Melbourne Fringe Festival
1993 RMIT Group Exhibition
1992 Bright Bay Technical College, Graduate exhibition

AWARDS
2009 Williamstown Festival Contempory Art Prize - Highly Commended
2009 Moran Photographic Prize - Semi Finalist
1997 Marylands House Portraiture Competition - Second prize
1997 Kino/Smoke Competition: Street scapes of Melbourne - Finalist
1996 Cafe Provincial Photography - Winner (Published in calendar)
1995 Melbourne Town Hall, Images of Melbourne - First prize photography