Graham Crowley

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.