Mark Wilkinson has been working as a freelance illustrator for over thirty years. Most of his current work is in the realm of fantasy, and he has seen his illustrations used in a wide variety of formats, from book jackets, magazines, record sleeves, and posters to stamp designs, advertising, and film merchandise. His big break in the music industry came when he was commissioned to create cover artwork for Marillion's 1983 debut album 'Script for a Jester's Tear' which was an overnight success. Mark went on to design the covers for the band's next three albums which were also very successful and this opened up a career which has included work for Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, The Darkness and many others. Mark previously curated a special section of the RAM Gallery devoted to Priest when the band headlined in 2018. More recently, he created a wealth of artwork for Priest's latest album 'Invincible Shield', and made his first foray into event organising with a multimedia show with Dutch band Under The Surface.

Q. You've created many albums for Judas Priest since doing 'Ram It Down' back in 1988. When did they approach you about working on the latest one?

“'Invincible Shield' was pitched to me well over two years ago, they asked me to come up with some ideas, and to be honest with you I found it really hard. You'd think it would be simple. In fact, they did say to me that it could be quite a simple cover, a shield. But you can't just do that, you've gotta have something going on. So I had a go three or four times and just wasn't getting anywhere. So I kinda backed away. I didn't do the previous one, the front cover, I did the back cover. I thought what Claudio Bergamin did on 'Firepower' was brilliant. Anyway, after many, many months they came back to me and asked if I'd have one last go at it. I said I'd do it and it was one last roll of the dice. I asked them if they had anything new to suggest but they said they were sticking with 'Invincible Shield'. So I sketched out a shield with bits flying off it and I think I got the inspiration from some footage on TV of one of the moon shots – it might have been that one in Cornwall that exploded – and when the rocket went up, bits fell off it. So I thought it could be interesting to treat the shield like that – bits of curling metal, lots of fire, and they loved lots of bright colours. That was one of the things about the earlier designs that I did, they were very dark. Rob [Halford] really didn't like it. He said it wasn't really them, it was other metal bands. But this time, even from a very basic sketch, they said 'That's it!' and they really liked it.”

Q. Have you got any work coming up that we might not know about yet?

“Yes! Crossbone Skully which features Tommy Henriksen who plays with Alice Cooper. The project was pitched to me strongly  - this was before Covid - but they said they couldn't tell me anything about it until i'd signed an NDA [non-disclosure agreement]. So I said, 'Okay!' They sent me the music and I absolutely loved it. It's heavy rock rather than heavy metal I would say, very much in the AC/DC vein, with a bit of science fiction thrown in. It's unpretentious, and I just really liked Tommy, he's such a force of nature, a real character. I met him in London when he was performing with Alice, and I saw him when he went out with The Hollywood Vampires. I met him and Johnny Depp and Alice – it was quite an experience! The album's coming out finally after all this time, in October I think, and it's called 'Evil World Machine'. The artwork, I just literally sent off all the final corrections today. I did send some of the music to Paul [Raymond Gregory] and he loved it. I thought they'd go down a storm at Bloodstock and he agreed.”

Q. What work will you be exhibiting in the gallery this year?

“The Priest guitars will be there, some older Priest album artwork, and then some of the artwork for 'Invincible Shield'. I also did some visuals for some of the new Priest videos, such as 'The Serpent and The King' and that'll be up there, and also a new version of the band's Trident emblem which I did.” 

www.mark-wilkinson.co.uk