Mark Francis: TRACING ECHOES

Saturday 17 January – Saturday 14 March 2026
Mark Francis: Oscillator I, 2025 Oil on canvas 183 x 153 cm | Mark Francis: TRACING ECHOES | Saturday 17 January  – Saturday 14 March 2026 | Solstice Arts Centre | Image: Mark Francis: Oscillator I, 2025 Oil on canvas 183 x 153 cm | there are maybe up to 50 notional vertical bars in this image, each of them containing some colour, often stain-like, usually towards the vertical centre; the effect is like seeing a bunch of people through a distorting sheet of glass, looking at a bit of x-ray spectroscopy, or bands of DNA

Solstice Arts Centre is delighted to announce TRACING ECHOES, a major exhibition by acclaimed Irish artist Mark Francis. Known for his dynamic and visually arresting paintings, Francis creates works charged with movement, sound, and rhythm. His practice combines intense sequences of colour within tightly gridded structures, generating a compelling tension between order and chaos.

There is an agitation in Francis’s work – a pulse, a vibration – as if the forms and colours are trying to break free, bleed into one another, or shift beyond their boundaries. His longstanding engagement with science provides fertile ground for exploration, transforming the invisible and the imagined into striking visual language. While technological feats inform his imagery, Francis reminds us that the true marvel lies in the unknown, where questions often prove more intriguing than answers.

For TRACING ECHOES, Francis presents new paintings, charcoal drawings, and a significant new commission for Solstice: Listening Field, the artist’s first moving image work. This immersive piece expands his visual vocabulary into time-based media, offering audiences a fresh perspective on his ongoing investigations into rhythm, perception, and the unseen.

This new work will also feature as part of Francis’s representation of the Republic of San Marino at the 61st Venice Biennale.

Mark Francis is represented by Kerlin Gallery. Mark Francis’s work has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, Brooklyn Museum; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Tate, London and Liverpool; Whitechapel Gallery, Design Museum, and the Royal Academy in London; The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart and Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin.

Announcing new edition

Solstice Arts Centre are delighted to announce the launch of a new print edition by Mark Francis, Phase. All proceeds to support TRACING ECHOES at Solstice Arts Centre.

Image: Mark Francis: Oscillator I, 2025 Oil on canvas 183 x 153 cm
Saturday 17 January – Saturday 14 March 2026
Solstice Arts Centre
Navan, County Meath
Telephone: +353 46 9092300
info@solsticeartscentre.ie
www.solsticeartscentre.ie
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Tuesday 11:00 - 16:00
Wednesday 11:00 - 16:00
Thursday 11:00 - 16:00
Friday 11:00 - 16:00
Saturday 11:00 - 16:00
Admission / price: Free

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