Mark McGowan

Mark McGowan (born 9 June 1964) is a British street artist, performance artist, film maker and public protester who has gone by the artist name Chunky Mark and more recently The Artist Taxi Driver.

By profession, McGowan is a London taxi driver and occasional University speaker and arts tutor.

McGowan is known internationally for his performance art including shock art, street art and installation art, and as a stuntman, internet personality, video blogger, social commentator, social critic, satirist, political activist, peace activist, and an anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-capitalist anti-monarchist and anti-power elite protester.

Under the artist name "Chunky Mark", McGowan entered the mainstream news in the early 2000s for his unconventional, satirical, sometimes comedic and/or ironic, and often absurd approach to public protest and demonstration.

Chunky Mark conducted hundreds of performances in the UK and dozens around the world, stirring up some international attention, further debate on what "art really is", controversy; and both support and mockery alike from intellectuals, the art world, private corporations, the police, the military, the tabloids and the public.

Often McGowan has not applied for police permission beforehand.

From 2001 to 2009, McGowan made dozens of unconventional street art protests and notable stunts under his "Chunky Mark" stage name to garner public attention to matters he cared about, or to raise attention to issues he believed were not in the wider public knowledge.

They promote or bring attention to, through unconventional means, community awareness and personal responsibility.

In his native country, McGowan as "Chunk Mark" performed hundreds of pieces of performance art, stunts and protests from 2001 to 2009.

According to arts magazine My Village London, "His witty and sometimes bizarre performance work has attracted wide media attention, and he has been featured in nationwide tabloids, Art Monthly, has been covered by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4."

Daniel Scagnelli of Arts London said: "McGowan could arguably be called one of the most controversial performance artists in the country and has added depth to his university’s alumni list.

McGowan dressed as an officer of the Metropolitan Police in the window to Clapham Art Gallery on 7 October 2001 and invited members of the public to come in and beat him with his truncheon, as a piece of performance art entitled Assaulted 2001.

The gallery said: "No resistance will be shown; no arrests will be made. This is an excellent opportunity for members of the public to vent their frustration, anger and resentment towards the police without fear of retribution. So if you have had an injustice done to you or if you just feel like giving a policeman a good hiding come along. No beating to take longer than five minutes. Booking is available and group beatings may be considered."

In 2003, !WOWOW!

organised warehouse parties in Peckham which had thousands of attendees including Lauren Bush, the former US President's niece, who was accompanied by two bodyguards.

McGowan did menial work but still painted for a decade before entering the art world.

In 2003, at age 33, McGowan earned a B.A. degree in Fine Art from Camberwell College of Arts, where he still occasionally lectures as a second year elective performance art tutor.

McGowan also occasionally lectures to MA students at Chelsea College of Art where he is an associate, and he also occasionally speaks at Goldsmiths University of London, a public research university.

McGowan has a second degree in the History of Art from the latter institution.

In the past McGowan has worked with the Scottish Arts Council and the University of Central England in Birmingham;

When asked if he considered himself an "attention seeker" by My London of BBC News in 2003, McGowan explained his reasoning and motives behind his performance art and demonstration:

"'I grew up on the infamous North Peckham Estate in south London... I turned to performance art because I found it a much more accessible medium to deliver what I was trying to express... The way to engage [poorer people in London] in art is to bring it into the street, which is what I'm doing - not by putting it in the White Cube or the National Gallery. Most people from Peckham are not going to go there - there's no-one walking around the National Gallery or the White Cube with a string vest on.'"

Some of McGowan's more notable and titled protests and stunts in the United Kingdom include:

In late 2003 McGowan announced to The Independent that he intended to "sail" a shopping cart 400 miles from Peckham in London to Glasgow in Scotland as part of a performance titled Ocean Wave Part 1 and Ocean Wave Part 2, using his feet as a rudder and an artists brush as an oar.

In 2005, McGowan was named irresponsible in a BBC article for planning to leave the engine of his Audi running continuously for a year in an art protest he would call The Unnecessary Journey 2005.

It was intended to be a protest for cleaner air and to make people think about leaving their exhaust fumes running.

In February 2008, the Irish Independent reported that McGowan planned to drag 300 kg of potatoes through the streets of Dublin while dressed as Bertie Ahern; his aim was to symbolise the burden being carried by the Taoiseach.

The protest was banned on the grounds that it would be "too politically sensitive."

McGowan abandoned the Chunky Mark persona in late 2010 and fully adopted the "Artist Taxi Driver" persona for his web blog on YouTube, where he films himself alone in his taxi between fares, often wearing dark sunglasses, and in which he rants passionately and emotionally about the news and issues of the day.

McGowan was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2011 and was still receiving treatment in 2013.

McGowan supported himself financially through higher education in a wide variety of different jobs; as a barman, milkman, cleaner, scaffolder, builder.

Before concentrating on solo performance art, stunts and protests, McGowan was affiliated with the Young British Artists, although not officially a member of the YBAs.

McGowan was heavily involved with The Children of !WOWOW! movement of visual, performance and musical artists which had a strong presence in his native Peckham and was controversial for its affiliation with rave culture.

The Artist Taxi Driver's official YouTube channel (still under the "ChunkyMark" name) by 2013 had thousands of videos made by McGowan, with almost 30,000 subscribers, and his most popular video viewed 220,000 times.

McGowan has said that despite eating animals in a number of his protests, he is in fact a staunch vegetarian in his private life, which made the animal eating protests more difficult for him.

McGowan is critical of the British royal family, is a republican, and claims he has never voted since "all politicians are the same" and the developed world has become "kleptocratic" rather than democratic.

In April 2013 McGowan launched a new piece of performance art protest entitled Where's Daddy's Pig in which he would give a letter written by him and his two children to David Cameron.

On 24 April 2013 he pushed a "daddy Cameron pig" oinking pig toy on wheels along the pavement with his nose from King's College Hospital (where his cancer had been diagnosed) to 10 Downing Street and the Bank of England.

McGowan intended to apologise to the people there for the hanging of William Wallace in the 14th century and collected numerous gifts from people along the way for that purpose.

The stunt was however cancelled after 17 days and 65 miles by bad weather and never resumed.