A BA(hons) in animation and three years as a professional tattoo artist has led to Marcus Hill's distinct painting style, a combination of these two disciplines – bold, graphic, dynamic moving figures, brought together under a graffiti-influenced style.

"I've spent a great deal of time exploring the outside world over the past decade, and one thing I noticed is that life rarely exists in solitude, so I started painting living things interacting with their counterparts in their groups/communities.  There was something so aesthetically pleasing and meaningful about the result that I've run with it ever since. For example, if you paint a single jellyfish, it can look cool, but if you paint a whole group of them interacting with each other, touching, moving out of each other's way etc., then something magic happens. Each new creature you paint determines the next, and so on, setting off a kind of artistic chain reaction. This way the paintings kind of grow by themselves.

Although I would by no means call my style 'realistic' I still try to make my paintings believable, which I do by giving my subjects weight, movement, direction, intent, etc. This is where my education in animation comes in handy."

Marcus is from Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire but now resides permanently in Norway.