British artist Mark Thompson has acquired international acclaim for his bleak, barren landscapes, with their empty buildings, cavernous hallways and panoramic snowscapes. Created painstakingly with layer upon layer of oil paint and glaze on wood, they create a hint of a scene or place, charged with memory that is hazy and imprecise. Based in Sweden, Thompson brings to fine art that Nordic-noir aesthetic that we see so often these days on our TVs. His new solo exhibition at Proud Central in London comes 20 years after he first showed there. I spoke to him at the gallery and asked him first to explain the exhibition’s title, The World Distilled.