How did you get interested in the arts?
My dad is a very creative person. He comes from an engineering background, and he is very much a person who is into making things. He was also one of those people who could fix most things. I think that was definitely a big influence as I was growing up.
I went to a small primary school, Loughbrickland, there were two schools, Loughbrickland Number 1 and later on I went to Loughbrickland Number 2.
In my early years at school, the teachers encouraged us to play, to make things, to explore, to investigate, to paint. That was very important for me to be encouraged to do that.
So, a combination of seeing what my dad was doing at home and being encouraged at school lead me to the arts.
You are encouraged at school?
I was told that the headmaster, Jim Sloan, called my mum into school for a meeting, it was Primary 6, and he said that he thought I was going to be an artist. He just wanted to let my parents know that.
My parents were very insistent that I worked on Maths and English, for them that was very important. But Maths really wasn’t my strongest subject, whereas the arts was what I was very good at.
One of the hardest things for any artist, I think, is to convince your parents that art is the route you are going to take. I would challenge my parents, especially my dad, saying that the arts was the path I intended to follow. I was quite determined about that.
Did you win that argument?
It was made a little easier when one of my pieces for my A levels was exhibited around the North of Ireland, along with other people’s work, and at the exhibition, one of my art teachers said to my dad that I was going to do well. I think the teacher suggested that I should be supported. I think that had an impact on my dad, and was able to see that I could actually make a career out of the arts.
What happens then?
I transferred to college in London. I studied Theatre Design and then Technical Arts Design (TAD) which was a course that was developed to help people design for the theatre, film and for television. That course gave me a lot of confidence and I worked in the industry for a while after that.
To see Mark Revel’s work click on the links below
