Mark Lewis

It's not surprising that the artist Mark Lewis caught my attention as he's a Canadian born artist now working in London and Ive just spent a year in Toronto. So some of his earlyer works caught my attention as they are panning video shots of downtown Toronto. His work consists of short films were the camera is either just placed observing what I'd call 'urban behavior', or it pans and zooms out slowly to reveal a bigger scene. The one that particularly speaks to me is the 'Nathan Phillips Square, a Winters Night, Skating' it's a kind of romantic view of the skating rink that's in the square in front of city hall in Toronto. A video which I enjoyed because of the 'Canadian dream' culture thing that had been part of the conversation and experience between me and my fellow international students during our experience. One of the things that strikes me most about Mark Lewises work is that these videos seem to feel like they are missing sound, some videos fell like they dont need sound, but these feel like they would be perfect stages to have a similarly good soundtrack, but the lack of sound is what makes it more interesting in the end. The lack of music were you expect there to be music makes you listen to the silence, and pay more attention to the visual things going on.

http://www.marklewisstudio.com/films2/Nathan_phillips_Sq.htm