Dale VN Marshall
Marshall (b. in 1974 Bath, UK) is a contemporary fine art painter currently residing in the Welsh countryside at the foothills of Snowdonia National Park. A graduate of one of California’s finest art schools, California State University Long Beach (CSULB), and of Coventry University he has had numerous successful solo exhibitions in London and the USA, in particular his first major solo exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum Walls with Wounds (February-May) in 2014.
Marshall’s career began over twenty-five years ago as a precocious young graffiti artist on the streets of Bath and Bristol. Outside on brick and concrete walls, Marshall would paint his own rendition of poetry which challenged the graffiti stereotype under the moniker ‘VERMIN’ or ‘Vn’ with bold statements such as: There is beauty in the lonely and From a young age cracks had started to appear. Marshall enjoyed this form of expressive freedom and youthful rebellion but it ultimately brought upon him the gritty consequences of street culture, which for Marshall led to drug use and psychotic episodes. In 1999 he was sectioned in one of Britain’s oldest asylums commonly known as the Cornwall County (Lunatic) Asylum. He suffered clinical depression for another seven years until he self discharged from antipsychotic medication.
The walls from the street have now been replaced by the crumbling walls of his former Victorian workhouse studio in rural Wales. These walls and this building not only inspire but have become an intrinsic part of his multimedia work and it is no coincidence that the building Marshall chooses to work in has a strikingly similar environment to the institution in which he was forced to reside in Cornwall. Marshall continues to use text and his moniker from his graffiti days to form the body of all his paintings. The works are multi layered and heavily textured, utilizing a variety of mediums and methods with a strong emphasis on the paint process and mark making.
Marshall is proud to challenge the stigma about mental health by sharing and documenting his own personal experience of mental illness through his painting. He draws on past memories and emotions, each painting standing as a testament that with attention and nurturing cracks and chaos can be transformed into beauty and peace. To view Marshall’s work one can perceive the pain and chaos the young artist experienced and yet it is this exact pain and chaos the artist now embraces. Each canvas is an attempt to reflect a balance of the frightening and the beautiful through instinctive mark making. Dale Marshall has had numerous successful solo exhibitions in London and the USA as well as outside walls around the world. His works are held in private and public collections worldwide. - VB Fine Art
