Portrait of the artist as a young man

Marcus Beilby was born in Perth in 1951 and gained entry to Applecross Senior High School Special Art Program to later study and graduate with a Diploma of Fine Arts from Claremont School of Art 1973 - 1975. He taught painting in numerous educational settings until 1979. He has maintained an unequivocal commitment to a realist painting strategy in a career spanning over forty years (1976-2017). This undertaking is framed by a distinctly regional perspective in the capture of wholly Western Australian subjects, an ethos shaped by his study at Claremont School of Art and subsequent art influences gleaned from his time residing in the USA.

In the spirit of a photorealist approach to image making, Beilby utilises the strengths of the camera in the selection of subjects directly from his immediate neighbourhood. The camera is a means to collate interesting moments for analysis in the studio before he translates them meticulously into paintings. However, Beilby is not averse to manipulating the framing and design of his paintings to emphasize aspects of the image and to avoid overstating social commentary. It's about the image, not the message or painting process that commands his attention.

Beilby operates as a chronicler with a keen focus for observation and representation of the prosaic. He wants to communicate about the people and places that make up the details of his and their lives. Over a long career as a realist painter, he has documented the changing physical and built environment of Fremantle. He has produced a body of compelling images that suggest a continuing narrative beyond the picture plane, to a network of other connecting stories, while drawing attention to a dialogue with a history of painting.

Associated with a cohort of similarly motivated kindred spirits in painters and printmakers; Ken Wadrop, Ray Beattie, Ashley Jones and Helen Taylor, Beilby gained national exposure exhibiting at the Art Gallery of WA with the High Street Studio Realists in 1980, an exhibition which toured NGV and AGNSW in 1981. He has participated in several group touring exhibitions and won the 1987 Sir John Sulman Prize for Australian Genre Painting and undertook a major commission to paint a picture to mark the opening of the new Parliament House, Canberra in 1993. A Fremantle based artist, Beilby has produced many private commissions and is represented in numerous Australian public, corporate and private collections, including Art Gallery of WA, National Gallery of Australia, Australian War Memorial, University of WA, City of Fremantle Art Collection, and Janet Holmes à Court Collection.