Mark Harrison studied illustration at Trent Polytechnic (1970-73) and continued with post graduate illustration studies at Wimbledon School of Art (1974). Since then he has worked as a professional illustrator, painting around 500 book jacket illustrations for most major UK and USA publishers, before turning recently to personal works.

In spite of his success as an illustrator, Mark Harrison has increasingly felt constricted artistically by the necessity of producing pictures to a brief, and so since 1995 he has also painted pictures for himself, based on themes of personal interest such as SE Asian imagery, decorative portraits and, more recently, land- and cityscapes in pastel and oil. In 2005 he ceased illustration completely and now devotes all his time to painting.

Mark Harrison has had paintings accepted for the Pastel Society Open Exhibition, London, in 2005 and 2006.