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Biography
Born in Romford, Essex 1950.
Educated St Martin's School of Art 1968 - 1972.
Royal College of Art 1972 - 1975.
Artist in Residence and Visiting Fellow of St. Edmund Hall 1982 - 1983.
Artist in Residence and Senior Fellow, Cardiff College of Art 1986 - 1989
Artist in Residence, Riverscape, Teesside/Cleveland 1990 - 1991
Member of the Council ICA, London 1983 - 1986
Selected Exhibitions (Reverse order)
Solo - A Love of Many Things - Peterborough Museum and Highlanes Municipal Gallery, Drogheda, Co. Louth - 2019
Solo - Graham Crowley - Bay Arts - Cardiff - 2006
Group - Jerwood Painting Prize - Finalist - London - 2002
Group - John Jones First London Open - Winner - 1994
New British Painting - Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati and touring USA - 1988
Solo - Domestic Crisis - Totah Stelling Gallery New York - 1986
Solo - Nightlife - ICA, London - 1984
Solo - Home Comforts - Museum of Modern Art - Oxford - 1983
Selected Publications
'Graham Crowley' by Martin Holman
'I don't like art' - collected essays by Graham Crowley
'A Love of Many Things' by Graham Crowley
See Graham’s Lockdown Interview here -
Statement
We should attempt to seek out what is and not what pleases us. Goethe
As I get older I find myself making paintings that mirror the passage of time; reflecting the world by rendering appearances and sensations in such a way that the paint appears viscous - almost alive - imagery ambiguous and emergent.
I don’t see myself painting things so much as the gaps between them and their attendant shadows. I paint those shadows in a manner that renders them more substantial than the objects that cast them.
The subject matter is ostensibly the wilding of a garden, but the content – what the painting is actually about – is the fugitive and intangible – light.
The paint should become synonymous with the intention – you can’t depict love, but you can paint lovingly.
To achieve this, I float Payne’s Gray pigment into resin directly on the surface of the primed canvas. The reverse of convention. The image remains negotiable only whilst the paint is wet. It’s a precarious business that sometimes results in a turgid mess. But occasionally has the potential to summon the magical world of Samuel Palmer. The past as present and painting as remote viewing.