Thes paintings on this portfolio were exhibited at the opening reception of the University of Bangor Centre for Mindfulness Conference in Chester, March 2013.

Mark Leonard's paintings emerge out of a sequence of applying and removing layers of paint. This process is an analogy for how we construct experience out of layers of perception, which then become undone. These paintings are images of what remains; awareness unmediated by constructs of the mind.

About the artist

Born in 1960, the son of a sculptor who was one of Barbara Hepworth's assistants in St Ives during the 1950's. He has painted all his life as a means of exploring meaning he failed to find expression for elsewhere. He Studied Zoology but, frustrated by the desert of reductionism, became a fisherman.

Later, he studied fisheries biology and represented the fishermen of England and Wales but failed to make a successful politician so returned to Cornwall and a life based around surfing. He left Cornwall in the late 1990's and ended up developing spy-camera technology to catch fly-tippers in Oxfordshire, using film footage to drive awareness of environmental policy.

Finally reaching the conclusion that raising awareness of issues would not impact change effectively, he resigned and, in 2008, dedicated himself to working for the charities of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre (OMC) and the Oxford Centre for Buddhist studies to bring attention to Buddhist thinking and practice. He then worked for the Dept of Psychiatry as the Projects and Development Manager of the OMC from 2010 till 2013. He trained to teach Mindfulness-Based Cogntitive Therapy and taught mindfulness programmes in the workplace for the the OMC He has now set up the Mindfulness Exchange to deliver cognitive-based mindfulness training in the workplace.