Mark Burch (b.1996, Wiltshire) is a British painter living and working in London. He graduated with an MA in Fine Art from the Bath School of Art in 2020, having previously completed his BA in Fine Art at Southampton Solent School of Art & Design (2017).

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Burch’s painting’s explore our mind’s tendency to daydream, replaying selective moments in a nostalgic, cinematic loop. By collecting, collating and editing pre-existing scenes from historical and queer material, he is able to present compositions that embrace the digital distortions and disruptions found in archival film, and express the imperfections evident in memory and fantasy. Emotion is idealised over accuracy, with feelings such as desire and intimacy foregrounded.

Rooted in feelings of self-censorship, Burch further employs cropping as both a formal and contextual strategy. Figures are partially obscured or concealed within the frame, echoing the broader histories of erasure that shape contemporary and queer narratives. Confronted with the choice to code or to risk visibility, Burch resists heteronormative structures by rendering scenes of queerness with deliberate presence and intention.

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