Mark Brazier is an unusual artist in that he has juxtaposed a number of different activities within his painting career.

Initially as an Army Officer, he took time out to paint when stationed in various parts of the world. Until 1972 when he found himself in Londonderry just two weeks after the infamous ‘Bloody Sunday’.

As a consequence, he took to depicting, in paint, in his own words, ‘somewhat ccolourless street scenes’ which reflected the overall gloom pervading the Province at that time.

One of these caught the eye of the Commandant-General of REME (Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers) who duly summoned Mark to London, as the Corps was seeking to commission an artist to depict a typical Northern Ireland scene involving REME personnel.

As it rurned out, the previous artist the Corps had commissioned was none other than David Shepherd – known world-wide for his paintings of elephants.

Then, some years later, whilst stationed in Hong Kong, Mark held the first of his one-man shows – in a gallery which the following week was to host an exhibition by the well-known Royal Academician, Ken Howard.

Which gave Mark the opportunity to ask Ken Howard to view his work and give his advice on whether he would benefit from attending an art college, as a mature student, such as The Slade, (where Ken taught).

‘No,” responded Ken Howard, “You are already developing your own style, which art teachers are notorious at trying to change in young artists’!

However, now married and with a young son, it had become clear to Mark that it would be well-nigh impossible for him to follow such a new career course at that stage.  But instead, an opportunity in another direction was to appear.

The Managing Director of MacMilllan publishers in Hong Kong had become aware of a number of Mark Brazier’s photographs of the region which had appeared in posters and various publications and therefore signed him up to take the required one hundred photos for a ‘coffee-table’ book depicting a day-in-the-life of the nearby Portuguese colony of Macau.

Once ‘Viva Macau’ was published, Mark Brazier left Hong Kong to establish Montpellier Public Relations Ltd in Cheltenham, which he then ran successfully for the next 20 years, before selling the company in order to fulfil the dream he had always sought to follow – to become a professional artist.

And which, at the age of 82, he still continues to enjoy doing