a guide to inner light
Mark Templeton
7th November - 21st December 2024
Opening 5pm Thursday 7th November
Artist Talk 6pm Friday 8th November at PCNW
"Somewhere between the ears and the eyes is a bridge of imaginary light. Somewhere in a dark room a bright cone of photons connects a slide projector to a wall. Dust motes drift like plankton in the glow. One thought overtakes another as the carousel clicks forward, shuffles; a new piece of celluloid drops into the projection slot, a new image illuminates the wall — visions of a recent past, filtered through what Mark Templeton calls the 'pink hue of mystery...' ... An electric fan blows air onto an incandescent bulb hidden inside the machine. We hum along as the filament burns and we puzzle together a fantasy. We hear the inner light before we see it. The ears tell the eyes where to look, and the eyes look inward."
(taken from Mike Slack's essay for Inner Light, 2024)
Mark Templeton's A GUIDE TO INNER LIGHT contains a series of printed Risograph photographs and repetitive tape loops, sourced from a discarded box of slides and series of 70s and 80s meditation cassettes that he came across in a library. In 2025, the project will be published as a photobook and limited edition cassette.
mark templeton
Mark Templeton is a Canadian media artist who has been actively releasing albums and performing live for nearly twenty years. In the spring of 2018, he released his first photobook, Distorted Tourist, which included a series of five one-sided flexi disc records. In 2021, his photobook and cassette, Ocean Front Property, was co-published by The Ice Plant and Graphical, the latter which he established in 2015 as a platform for his audiovisual works. Ocean Front Property was one of the winners of the Belfast Photo Festival OPEN SUBMISSION Award, it was featured in France’s national newspaper Le Monde Magazine and was long listed for the RDS Visual Arts Awards. In 2025, his third photobook and limited edition cassette, A GUIDE TO INNER LIGHT, will be published.
Templeton has performed live and exhibited his work at Belfast Photo Festival, Pingyao International Photography Festival, Unsound Festival, Mutek Festival, Send+Receive Festival, Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival, WNDX Festival and other festivals, art galleries and alternative spaces in Europe, the UK and North America. His photographs have been featured in Le Monde Magazine, GUP Magazine and American Suburb X.
In June of 2019, Mark completed an MFA in Photography, with distinction, through Ulster University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Instagram: @fieldsawake