The Arts & Culture Journal

This week Fallyrag falls head-over-heels down a rabbit hole into the magical world of Marko Rop.

This mysterious work offers an insight into the deeply creative mind of Marko; who expresses in a variety of styles and subject matter. Realistic, detailed works stand shoulder to shoulder with more expressive brush work - canvases that are a rainbow of colour next to monochrome darkness.

You get the feeling with Marko that every painting represents a new challenge, a fresh reinvention of previous works. There is little to hold these together as a series save for the wonderfully unusual stories they depict.

On the one hand we have abstract theatres of twisting optical illusions; canvases that relay a story that you often witness with other characters in the foreground of the same picture. We are all watching together. And yet, while we feel camaraderie with the characters in some works, others are isolated and alone - dark, swirling backgrounds around a prime figure make them seemingly untouchable. Others are windows into another world and in others we are simply a helpless fly on the wall.

Yet this is the charm of Marko's work. We are helpless and in a world where so much emphasis is on 'being in control' it is refreshing to sit back and forego that privilege.

Let us focus on the last image in this collection - a couple about to embrace along the sea front. Perhaps about to dance, the awkwardness of the male is evident in his discerning eyes and the lanky frame, held slightly back from the girl. What Marko achieves so successfully in this piece is a celebration of light. There is very little to differentiate between cobbled foreground and the bleached sky - yet this blanket of light expertly draws you to the contrasting dark figure of the male and his