- Interview Location: Illuxcon 2024
- Interview Date: 10/25/2024
Anime Herald: What is your origin story of becoming an artist?
Mark Harrison: I used to be an illustrator. I worked in the publishing business. I did 484 book cover illustrations over a twenty, twenty-five-year period. I worked for most UK and US publishers. That’s how I got into America. I used to come to the conventions, World Sci-Fi, [and] World Fantasy. I was doing American covers, so people knew my work. That’s how that started.
Anime Herald: Of those covers, which are the most famous, the most recognizable?
Mark Harrison: I did all sorts of books originally. Literary fiction. Crime. Romance. Everything. Then it gradually narrowed down to fantasy and science fiction. Eventually, it became just fantasy; all fantasy books in the end.
My most recognizable covers are probably the ones I did for Anne McCaffrey. That would have been over twenty-five years ago.
Anime Herald: Of your current pieces, let’s talk about the Vampire of San Polo. What was your inspiration for this piece?
Mark Harrison: I’ve been to Venice a few times. I was walking around at night. Have you been to Venice?
Anime Herald: I have.
Mark Harrison: When you’re walking around at night, away from the main tourist areas, it gets very moody. There’s a little alleyway with a single light at the end. I just had the idea, “Ooh, maybe a vampire inhabits some of these areas.”
Oh, I know: “Maybe there’s a vampire in every square.”
This is the vampire of San Polo. Which is an area, it’s not a square. San Polo is a district of Venice. I view Venice as a mysterious place, not a romantic place.
Anime Herald: Let’s talk about the next painting, Dusk on the Nile. What was your inspiration for that piece?
Mark Harrison: The inspiration for that comes from the old postcards of the 1920s and 1930s. Photographers would go out there, take a black & white shot, and then people would colorize them for the postcard industry. Very beautiful, soft colors. So that was influenced by the old postcards. I have a collection of my own of them.
Anime Herald: There are the Hercule Poirot movies, A Haunting in Venice, Death on the Nile.
Mark Harrison: No connection. But also, I’m very interested in Orientalism. Kasba Layla. That’s in Morocco. I’m a bit of a traveler. I’ve been to a lot of places and I like foreign cultures. And I love Orientalism.
Anime Herald: I’m a fan of Jean Leon-Gerome.
Mark Harrison: Oh yes. He’s a good one. There were many others. He was mixed up with the French Academy. The high end of the art world in that space. A lot of guys were imagining what these places looked like. Haram scenes. Haram means forbidden. Nobody has been in them. So they invented these scenes with naked women over couches. I love all that stuff.
This piece (Call of the Muezzin) is quite Jerome-influenced.
Anime Herald: Hatsuhinode (the first sunrise of the year) is a Japanese piece.
Mark Harrison: That came out of being interested in Orientalism. I thought about what other cultures I could look at. I thought of Japan. And then this piece (Red Lantern Street) is my first picture based on Chinese culture.
Anime Herald: What was your inspiration for Castle of Lost Souls?
Mark Harrison: I wanted to use a different color scheme from what I normally do. Partly, I wanted to get my seas better. I did a series of marine paintings. This was one of them. I started with a beach, and then a castle, and thought about shipwrecks. A castle of lost souls. It’s been there for ages. This is where everyone who was shipwrecked ends up.
Anime Herald: I feel bad for them. They were men of the sea and now they’re men of the castle.
Mark Harrison: Now they’re stuck there forever.
Anime Herald: That’s a brutal beat.
Mark Harrison: It’s a pretty picture with a melancholy story. Which a lot of my stuff is. I like melancholy. I don’t like pretty pretty. I like them to have an edge to them.
Anime Herald: Like Land of Snow.
Mark Harrison: That was influenced by Maxfield Parrish. A master from the golden age of illustration. He was famous for his blue skies.
Anime Herald: You like to experiment with a lot of the artists who inspired you.
Mark Harrison: Not directly. They come in from the back. I’ll get my own ideas and then it will occur to me “Maybe a Parrish-feel will be good for this one.” I don’t start with the artist, I start with the idea. “Maybe a bit of Jerome here.”
Anime Herald: How did you first get involved with Illuxcon?
Mark Harrison: A chance meeting on a railway platform in Brighton where I live. I bumped into the woman who was running the art show at World Fantasy that year in Brighton. She said, “Hi Mark. If you want, I’ll give you a free ticket to the art show. You can come in and see some people there that you know.”
At the show, I ran into Jim Burns. He asked if I knew about Illuxcon. I said no. He said I should go to it. He thought I might do okay at it. I emailed Pat Wilshire. Somehow, his email address was in my address book. I emailed him and said “I just bumped into Jim Burns. He said that you run Illuxcon. I know I’m too late for this year, but would you be interested in me applying for next year?”
He replied, “You’re in.” I said, “You mean now?” He said, “Yes. You can show this year. We always keep a few spaces open.” I said “Um, um, um… Oh okay.”
I had about four months to get a load of pictures to exhibit. I hadn’t been working in fantasy. I was working in fine art in the UK. I thought “I have nothing to show!”
I managed to get a show together in about four months of painting. It felt like coming back home. I know loads of people here. From the Worldcons. World Fantasy. Chicago, Boston, Orlando, Miami, New Orleans. I know a lot of the artists. It’s a great social event.
Anime Herald: What got you into art as a child?
Mark Harrison: I was always dabbling, always drawing. In England, we have the O-levels (Ordinary Levels) and the A-levels (Advanced Levels). You’re about sixteen years-old when you do your O-levels. I did my O-levels. I didn’t like school. My mom and dad put me into a technical college where I did my A-levels. I went there to do Geography, German, and something else. They said “If you want free tuition, you need to do eighteen hours a week, minimum.
I needed to find another subject, so I did art. I started with O-level art. The tutor said “You should do A-level art.” I said “Okay.” Then he said, you should go to art college. I said, “Yeah, alright.”
No strategy at all. A complete fluke.
Anime Herald: What school did you eventually end up going to?
Mark Harrison: Trent College in Nottingham. Then I did a graduate year in Wimbledon in London. It was in Wimbledon that I got my first illustration commission, from Penguin Books.
Anime Herald: Do you remember what book it was?
Mark Harrison: Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder. The Great Gatsby era.
That was my first ever book cover. I was still in college. When I left college I thought “Right, okay things are going to go well here.” “No!”
Anime Herald: Five years later, you get your second gig.
Mark Harrison: You’re not far off. I got an illustration agent. They didn’t get me anywhere. I gave up illustration completely. I got an office job. I became a postal clerk in an office. I had regular money for the first time.
I thought, “This isn’t really going anywhere.” I started putting together a new portfolio on the weekends. I tried another agent. They took me on and I got work instantly. I was booked for twenty years. I was always booked up six months ahead.
Anime Herald: That’s incredible.
Mark Harrison: My life is not remotely planned. Funny how life works out. I appreciate the openness of America, in terms of what they accept in art. I had given up on England. I don’t bother with the art scene.
Anime Herald: Is that why you have more patrons here?
Mark Harrison: Yeah. It’s just a different world. A different market and everything. I just don’t get on with England, in terms of selling paintings. I sell a few.
Anime Herald: Thank you for talking with us,
Mark Harrison: Good luck with it.
You can find more of Mark’s work (and Mark himself) on his Instagram, paintingsbymarkharrison.
You can also find his work on IX Gallery’s website.
