Mark Bletcher’s Rise

I’ve been thinking about Pluto: myth, archetype, planet, god, the slow-moving force that strips away illusions and leaves only what stands.

Whatever you think about astrology, Pluto as a planet is pretty extraordinary. Discovered only in 1930, it’s 3.7 billion miles away – and yet somehow we’ve got photographs (well, NASA do). When they sent the New Horizons spacecraft in 2006, they had to slingshot it around Jupiter for extra momentum, or it never would have made it. Nine years later, in 2015, it flew past Pluto and sent back some grainy shots  of an icy world – smaller than our moon, with five moons of its own, and a heart-shaped plain across its surface.

It’s hard not to smile at that tiny, eccentric distant body, moving so slowly it takes 248 years to complete one orbit, carrying its own gravity, its own satellites, its own heart and 5 moons.

In astrology, Pluto’s reputation is fierce. It marks the long chapters of pressure, stripping away, descent into the underworld, and eventual renewal for those who stay the course. You don’t breeze through a Pluto transit – you’re changed by it.

It’s the planet of endings and rebirth, of shadow and survival. Myth named it Hades, ruler of what’s buried – god of both death and hidden wealth.

A Pluto transit doesn’t glide past. It clears the way. Knocks you back. Clears again. And again. Until suddenly, after years underground, something steps into its true power.

Mark Bletcher’s rise carries something of the same rhythm. I first saw his work at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle during his BA degree show in 2019. One of the paintings from that show has been with me ever since. It’s the first thing I see when I come home – a domestic scene: boots left by the radiator. Utility, warmth, ordinary ritual. The radiator is obscured, almost ghosted. Across it, text: CATCH UP FOR YOU – a phrase both oddly intimate and confrontational, like a half-remembered instruction. Whose voice is it? Who must catch up? Who is the “you”?

 

 

I’ve long expected Mark’s rise, and the rhythm has been Pluto’s own: delays, pressure, the subterranean work of becoming. He’s now on the cusp of his MA, and with it, a shift. Prices for his work are rising significantly – long overdue, aligned with the truth of his becoming and the many accomplishments to date.

Plutonic reward: Years of build-up, the sense of being held under, then the sudden shift. Knockbacks, clearings, the long subterranean pressure and then emergence. Mark’s rise carries that same rhythm.

The underworld has done its work. This is the emergence.

The increases are significant and have begun:

Two canvases – Glammer Hammer and Agamemnon – remain at their lower figures. A brief chance for you to collect before they rise.

 

 

Agamemnon
Mark Bletcher
22 x 60 cm | 8 x 23 in
Original painting in oil on wood panel.
£900

 

 

Glammer Hammer
Mark Bletcher
21 x 30 cm | 8 x 11 in
Original painting in oil on wood panel.
£600

 

 

 

Iz’s Visit
Mark Bletcher
71 x 91 cm | 27 x 35 in
Original painting in oil on canvas.
£7800

 

 

 

London Player
Mark Bletcher
72 x 92 cm | 28 x 36 in
Original painting in oil on canvas.
£7800