Mark Mohell completed his photography diploma in Canberra in 1997, and during his studies was named the Australian Institute of Professional Photography’s ACT student photographer of the year. Subsequently, he gained a degree in environmental design. Having worked throughout Australia documenting large-scale environment and heritage projects, since 2010 he has been Image Services Manager at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. There, he has made a major creative contribution to exhibitions and accompanying publications for Paris to Monaro and Arcadia, both of which won major design awards. His portrait of inaugural director Andrew Sayers AM was acquired for the Gallery’s collection at Sayers’s own request. In such exhibitions as view from here and kerb lite Mark has explored the constructed, urban landscape in the context of ‘the ease with which we let things fall apart. We shape the environment to our desires, but gradually forget its significance. As time passes it grows and becomes alien to us. When we finally attend to the world closest to us, what we look upon is something quite foreign.’ Mark’s exhibition kerbside toured to Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre in 2014. Several of his photographs were acquired by the Canberra Museum and Gallery in 2015, and immediately featured prominently in the exhibition Urban Suburban.
Website: markmohell.com
Mark Mohell, Watching passerby, 2018. Photography/Archival pigment print, 77 x 78 cm.
