Wednesday Artist: Graham Dean

I'm not interested in straightforward depiction . . .

It's more about the psychological usage. . .

of going beyond the image, of trying to get something else. . . .

~ Graham Dean

Graham Dean, who exhibits the world over (he has had more than 50 solo shows), is a painter who uses the body "to characterize the identity of a character—from the inside to the outside." It is through the figure that he seeks to evoke and convey memories, ideas, and emotions. 

In the trailer below, from the 180-minute documentary Waterproof* (2015), Dean demonstrates his "reverse archaeology" technique that produces "reinvented" watercolors. As explained on his Website, Dean separately applies contrasting layers of watercolors to porous sheets of thick, handmade paper from India; he subsequently tears into sections versions of the same composition and then reassembles or "jig-saws" various sections together, as one would a collage, to create his final, haunting, and often stunningly beautiful work. Dean's idea is to evoke not only a sense of bodily fragmentation but also to create something entirely new from what has been destroyed. Each such work is open to interpretation but the figure or parts of the figure remain recognizable. To produce depth and intense color, Dean uses multiple transparent layers of paint glazes.

* Waterproof, Interview with Dean Graham, Falling between the floorboards, and Behind the Curves: Paintings

Part 1, below, of Falling between the floorboards, which documents Dean's life and work, was filmed at Dean's studios in Brighton, England, and Umbria, Italy. 

For the remaining parts, see the Videos section of Dean's Website.

View a selection of Graham Dean's series of paintings.

Dean is represented in the United States by Salamatina Gallery in New York City. He is represented abroad by Waterhouse & Dodd, London; Frans Jacobs Fine Art, The Netherlands; Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, Scotland; and Artizan Editions, Gloucestershire.

Graham Dean on FaceBook

My thanks to Artfilms, where I discovered the preview to Waterproof. Based in Melbourne, Australia, the company makes films about artists and artworks, the visual and performing arts, the healing arts, and more. It's tagline is "educating [the] imagination".

Artfilms on FaceBook