Graham Dean: Olympic Exhibition
Monday, July 23, 2012
New Work 2012: Fitter, Quicker, Longer
Graham Dean is an English contemporary artist with an international reputation. His works are instantly recognizable: powerful, vibrant, visceral and often taking the human form as the subject. His latest collection of work is entitled Fitter, Quicker, Longer and is on view at Waterhouse & Dodd in London as well as the Victoria Art gallery in Bath to coincide with the 2012 Olympic Games.
Dean’s paintings will not be a conventional homage to individual sports men and women, but an abstract expression of their art through their bodies. Representational, but not personal, his large-scale watercolours will bear witness to the voluntary subjugation of the body to achieve extreme goals, and portray the physical form as a powerful tool which comes to characterise the identity and ambition of an individual.
Covering a cross-section of Olympic and Paralympic sports, from the grace and streamlined beauty of the diver to the more brutal – but no less sensual – images of weight lifters and wrestlers, these are works which will leave a lifetime’s legacy. Colour and contrast is central to Graham Dean’s work, his frequent use of strong reds and yellow set against sombre, dark shades of brown and green, creates dramatic rather theatrical works. And the artist frequently seems to illuminate his figures almost in the manner of a filmmaker. The application of paint glazes, in multiple, transparent layers, allows great intensity and depth.
Dean has reinvented the traditional use of watercolour paint through an innovative technique he has dubbed ‘reverse archaeology’. Contrasting layers of paint are applied separately on thick, handmade paper, made of ‘khadi’ a cloth which in this case is made from re-cycled T-shirts, imported direct from Kerala in Southern India. Each sheet is torn by hand (the artist’s own!) and overlapped to create a final composition of paper which corresponds to the multiple layers of the epidermis which protects the skin of the human body. The process is organic and cyclical, the paintings appear fragmented and destroyed using sections (front and back) that lead to a renaissance in the form of a new composition.
For images of all works and further details click here
The exhibition continues at 26 Cork Street until 10th August, for any enquiries please call +44 20 7734 7800 or email cork@waterhousedodd.com
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