| Dylan Thomas |
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When choosing a theme, image or approach for the making of a painting, there are various angles from which to proceed. Some artists want to ‘say’ something relating to (for instance) politics or contemporary issues. Some are haunted by disturbing or pleasing images, and seek to explore these relentlessly. A glance at the range of visual imagery in Graham’s paintings shows that neither of these approaches are relevant, and that a great many different kinds of objects and scenes are painted. Dustbins, brooms, bird cages, toys and people appear. Graham strives toward the unbiased observation of whatever presents itself and so doing captures the ambiguities and dualities present within people, and phenomena. In this way life and death, the beautiful and the ugly, virtue and vice are seen to co-exist, sometimes to blur or merge, and to be forever equally present, however we may favour or privilege some aspects of human nature and existence above others. The result is a rare and direct confrontation in the artwork with what is as such. Rather than making art where message, narrative and/or concept are key, Graham strives to work at each painting free of preconceived ideas and the baggage of art discourse, as far as is possible for the trained artist. Here a strange incongruity appears, as Graham can be regarded as a ‘traditionalist’, yet does not intend to appropriate or borrow from the past. Thus the artist’s figures and portraits approach the psychological depth of Rembrandt’s representations, and yet Graham has ‘only’ tried to paint – brushstroke for brushstroke, confronting the canvas in the language of the painterly medium: colour, surface, placing, light and dark, tactile presence. Graham can, and does, observe and represent, but the images are called forth with hermeneutic honesty and directness: not as renditions but as apparitions or ‘guests’ called forth by the artist’s absence of attachment. In a vaguely numinous way, Graham’s figures and objects appear from a non-specified depth (visually and psychically), as present-at-hand in the Heideggerian sense, neutrally reposing in themselves. The artist arrives at the canvas, labours without assumption, facilitates the artwork into being and, lastly, steps aside for the viewer to determine the outcomes and implications.
2009 Two man show with Zolile Phetshane at Dawid’s Choice gallery, Johannesburg 2008 Group exhibition, “This or Us”, with Cobus Haupt and Sarel Petrus at Off the Wall Contemporary, Paarl 2007 Group exhibition, “....”, with Guy du Toit, Iaan Bekker and Sarel Petrus at Platform on 18th, Pretoria 2004 Solo exhibition at the Outlet Gallery, Pretoria 2001 Group exhibition, “Launch” with Johan Thom, Rina Stutzer and Cobus Haupt at the Open Window, Pretoria. 2000 New signatures at Pretoria Art Museum. 1999 ABSA Atelier at the African Window (Cultural history museum), Pretoria 1998 New signatures at Pretoria Art Museum.
I have works in corporate collections like Sasol and private collections. I have done commissions for clients like Rand Merchant Bank. Please contact me for a full portfolio.
• Currently a part time lecturer at TUT for Figure Drawing for 1st and 3rd years
“DYLAN GRAHAM is one of three young Pretoria artists in a show curated by Thereza Lizamore at Artspace. His paintings have the feel of history and a kind of gloomy romance about them. His palette has a wintry Europeanness about it — all charcoal and murky teals. A work called Recollection features a pair of red high heels against a green-grey background, while Last Goodbye is an erotic painting of a woman’s legs. She is wearing heels and there is a buck skull on the floor alongside a screw. Graham’s portraits of women are all dark eyes, dark hair — brooding Celtic beauties conjuring up James Joyce’s Nora or Herman Charles Bosman’s Ella. With their broad black frames, they recall ancestral portraits one might come across in the voorkamer of an old farmhouse in Free State. There’s a stoicism that’s the key to the myth of Afrikaner womanhood — a beauty born of fortitude and forbearance.” - Alex Dodd in Businessday 2006/07/10 (http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2135831)
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