Mark Oats
The Fiddle Player - 2020 Archibald entry

Semi-finalist in the 2021 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize

Mark is a wizard on the fiddle; he can bring you to tears with the beauty of his playing and then have you whirling across the dance floor in a mad jig. He has a kind of magic in his fingers, but it’s soulfulness which transforms his tunes into something special; something that lifts me higher.

Art and music are intertwined - I always listen to music while painting - and in this portrait I wanted to capture the synaesthetic combinations of Mark’s colourful personality and the driving rhythms and inspiring melodies he conjures, almost effortlessly, from his old fiddle.