Graham Crowley
Besides being one of the top painters in the UK, Crowley hosts an annual group exhibition called Silent Disco in his home. And it is literally one of the best exhibitions in the region. Rather than directly curating the artworks, Crowley curates the selection of artists and then invites them to show an artwork of their choice. It's a winning formula that results in an exhibition of superb quality.
Graham Crowley (born 3 May 1950, Romford) is a British painter and one of the most respected figures in contemporary British painting. He studied at St Martin's School of Art (1968-1972) and the Royal College of Art (1972-1975). His early work of the 1970s was abstract, using bold colour and flat forms, before he turned in the 1980s to figurative subjects, often depicting animated domestic objects and interiors in response to Thatcher-era Britain; he was artist-in-residence at Oxford University in 1982-83. From the mid-1990s he lived and worked in West Cork, Ireland, where landscape became central to his painting, before returning to England and settling in Suffolk in 2014, where he runs a studio in Wickham Market. A distinguished teacher, he held posts at Oxford, Cardiff, and the City & Guilds of London Art School, and was Professor of Painting at the Royal College of Art (1998-2006). In 2023 he won the John Moores Painting Prize with Light Industry, a painting of a classic motorcycle dealership, on his tenth entry to the competition since 1976; he had earlier taken second prize in the Jackson's Painting Prize in 2017. He exhibited early at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford (1983) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1984), and showed in the 1982 Venice Biennale. His work is held in numerous public collections including the Arts Council Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Council, the Imperial War Museum, the Government Art Collection, and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Graham Crowley is represented by domobaal, London.
Artist Statement
I paint shadows. I'm intrigued by luminosity in painting. This is the driving force behind LIGHT INDUSTRY*. I've always been fascinated by those of Manet. The way in which the image and the painting (as its own object) can be seen simultaneously – fused together as a single luminous entity. This remarkable duality is one of paintings defining characteristics. I discovered my subject matter during a visit to Andy Tiernan Classics, a classic motorcycle dealer in Framlingham, Suffolk. It's part workshop and part counter cultural 'museum'. What I found enthralling about the place was the light; a diffused, dusty kind of light that eminated from a grubby skylight. I thought this significant because I regard light as synonymous with life and luminosity as painting's equivalent. Creativity and class are long-standing preoccupations of mine, and one of the ways I've discovered to navigate these complex issues is by adopting a variety of graphic (or vernacular) devices. In this case it's the low-tech duotone. My intention is to make paintings that are both luminous and their own object. This dictates the way I paint. I apply Paynes Grey pigment directly into the medium. Wet into wet, then glaze.