Prior/Ghaffari - India (30 artworks)

Full Biography: Mark Prior

Mark Prior, born in Brighton, England, (1957) where he attended art college majoring in sculpture. His medium of land art involved recording his creations for gallery display which lead to his abiding passion for landscape photography.

As a student Mark won the prize for Best Entry, Young Photographers in the South East, leading to early exposure in a touring exhibition. He completed his BA in Fine Art with Honours and later gained a Diploma in Professional Photography from the Polytechnic of Central London.

A five year period of involvement as photographer for the ground-breaking Northern Arts Sculpture Residency in Grizedale Forest lead to the book and travelling exhibition "A Sense of Place". The pull of the wild places of the North proved too hard to resist and he moved to the County Durham Dales in 1984, opening Priors Contemporary Fine Art in Barnard Castle the next year where he represented over 100 artists for 17 years.

In 1997 Mark was a ‘Co-Pilot’ of the “Elect Project” (partners: Visa, NatWest, Hewlett Packard and Onyx Internet) a Secure Electronic Transaction System, launched in 1998 by the Prime Minister Tony Blair by purchasing a Picture from Priors’ Web Site.

Mark met his partner, the artist Mitra Ghaffari, in 2002 and after a life-changing 6 month trip to India they settled in BC. They co-founded Mima Gallery & Fine Art Publishers in 2005 and live and work from their studio in Denman Island.

Select Exhibitions: Hayward Gallery, London; Sunderland Arts Center, UK; Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle; Pyramid Gallery, York; Bede Monastery Museum, Jarrow; Woodhorn Church Museum, Northumberland; 33 Essex Libraries (touring) UK; Photogallery, St.Leonard’s-on-Sea; Glaxo Operations, UK; The Gallery at Mattick's Farm, Victoria; Denman Summer Gallery, Denman Island; Mima Fine Art Gallery, Denman Island.

Publications & Media: BBC2 TV Feature; Tyne-Tees TV News; Studio International Magazine; New Arcadian Journal no. 27  “Classic Ground”, UK; Daily Mirror, UK; Comox Valley Echo, BC; plus numerous other press articles.

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Full Biography: Mitra Ghaffari

Mitra Ghaffari, MFA, was born in 1959 in Tehran, Iran. "My earliest memories are of colors taking shape bathed in brilliant white light. Love of light, lines, music & movement have been with me since childhood." In 1976 she moved to the USA and completed the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from the Academy of Arts College in San Francisco. She has studied, collaborated & exhibited with three accomplished international artists: Elsa Marley, Jiang Jin and Mark Prior. Mitra co-founded MiMa Gallery and Fine Art Publishers in 2005 with Mark Prior. She now resides and works from their studio on Denman Island, British Columbia.

Mitra's mediums of choice are Chinese rice paper, ink & brush with vegetable & mineral colors, and digital photography. Fields of color, light and calligraphic lines of nature are her subjects. She has traveled extensively and exhibited internationally. Her artworks are represented in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery and in the permanent collection of Tokyo Asian Contemporary Fine Art.

Exhibitions: SFMOMA Artists Gallery, CA; MIMA Fine Art Gallery, Denman Island; The Gallery at Mattick's Farm, Victoria; Pyramid Gallery, York, UK; West Hitachi Viewseum, Santa Clara; Canon of the Famous Works of Chinese Calligraphy, China; University of Berkeley Gallery, CA; 35th Exhibiton of Asian Contemporary Fine Art, Tokyo; Cambridge University On The Web, UK; North Western Polytechnic University, CA; Quantom Corporation, Santa Clara; 29th International Exhibition of Modern Ink Painting, China; Shanghai University, China; United Nations Association, Silicon Valley; 3M Corporation, Santa Clara; Academy of Art College, SF.

Awards & Articles: Winner of International Huji Prize, Japan; Select Art, 29th International Exhibition of Modern Ink Painting, China; Featured Artist, 150th Ink Magazine, Japan; Cambridge University on the web, UK; Shanghai Star Magazine; Nichii Bei Times, USA; Hokubi Shimbum, USA; Academy of Art College, USA; Art Journal, USA; Comox Valley Echo, BC.