Graham Painting

I am a mark maker, my practice is made up of paintings, drawings and objects. I intend my work to be made without concept or design so as to exist as only a visual sensation. However I am aware nothing can be devoid of symbolism or concept, from this my ethos was born, to create work which imparts enough pictorial information to evoke a memory in the viewer, allowing them to project their own interpretation of symbolism onto my work. My practice is twofold in that I am also exploring the notion of paintings as objects, objects that become the moment I have painted on them. Through research and the collecting of photographs I began to isolate what it was I wanted to capture in my paintings, a fleeting moment, some filled with motion and other tranquil and still. But all moments, most verging on the mundane, but ones which most people will experience at some point in their lives. From this came the introduction of using painting rags in my work, the repetitive motion of wiping a brush, cleaning it, day after day, staining the fabric is a very mundane thing. Each wipe captures a moment from the process of painting that will never exist again. As much as they are a documentation of my work I regard them as paintings also. By folding and manipulating the material I am creating something aesthetically pleasing out of the ‘ruined’ material. I strove to take my work a step further by turning these moments into tangible ‘things’ that you could reach out and touch. I have moved my paintings towards the realm of object and sculpture as opposed to a 2D piece meant solely for the wall. Through stacking, leaning, folding and ultimately creating an object for which to paint on, I have created works which function as both paintings and objects.