Mark Hilltout

Matisse in Corrugated Iron

2018

Mark is a restless soul. He was born in 1948 to a middle-class family, ultimately graduating from Birmingham Art College. He has lived in Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Toronto, New York, Brussels and Madagascar where he learned to sew metal. He has driven through Africa, twice. In between he has also run a hotel in Seychelles and advertising agencies on four continents. When back in Cape Town, he designed and funded two photographic books, both on football in Africa. He has hand-drawn a comprehensive map and guidebook to Woodstock, Cape Town. Mark has been an artist all his life, except he was always called an art director. There is no single turning point that led Mark to do what he does now, but he has always been drawn to the discarded, the imperfect. He is fascinated by car dumps and has long been a collector of enamel commercial signs. Above all, he loves corrugated iron, for all its ancient blemishes and weather-beaten scars. He tolerates computers, but he prefers the happy accidents that can only occur by hand. He believes that true beauty comes from the close attention to craft, not the obsession with ideas. He now lives in Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa.