Brian Graham
Seen by Scene. First in Line 2010
Mixed media on board 50 x 71 cm
In recent years I have visited
many places of considerable interest to me. They varied in personality
from sites trapped within a background of industrial squalor to sublime
spectacular terrain. They all shared an essential ingredient. All contained
compelling evidence of early human occupation.
Some of this
evidence was minimal; a rare fragment of bone or an isolated shard of knapped
flint. On other occasions, whole living floors have been revealed, offering a
more comprehensive overview of life in Britain from around 950,000 years ago.
When released
from its guardian terrain, this precious, sometimes barely recognisable material,
often finds itself in the laboratories of museums and universities, becoming
the recipient of considerable analysis. After that the most significant may find
favour with curatorial staff.
As I observed
in the catalogue for my previous exhibition NOW AND THEN, I am interested
in how early technologies, their original purpose now long redundant, have transferred
their allegiance to new resting places; cool, clinical and analytical.
I decided
in SEEN BY SCENE, a new body of ten paintings, all diptychs,
to examine these relationships further. In essence I have looked in even
greater depth at these arenas of presentation as exemplified in some
of modern architecture’s
most acknowledged buildings. Here, material could be ideally SEEN alongside
the SCENE of its original location.
All titles
in SEEN BY SCENE have explanatory sub headers that refer to issues
explored that are as relevant today as they were to our distant antecedents and
in some cases pertinent to my personal experience. At this point some readers
may appreciate a little guidance, to help understand my thinking, when constructing
some of these works.
For example,
in ESPAÑA, the raised and incised forms used to express
Frank Gehry’s lyrical Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, are linked to
bone fragments found at Atapuerca, a hugely significant early human site
also in Northern Spain, which I visited in 2005.
In ARCHITECTURE,
the circular white aerial form of Richard Rogers’ 02 Arena is placed
alongside a similarly shaped scatter of materials that would have accumulated
over time as concentrations of discarded detritus. When I made this work
I had read that assemblages of bones and stones from 400,000 years ago
at a waterside site could be considered as some of the first attempts
at architecture. Now it is thought these accumulations were formed by
the natural movement of flowing water. Even so, in early sites of human
occupation it certainly would have been wiser to gather around hearths
and be near to a fresh water supply.
With THAMES,
Herzog and de Meuron’s inspired reworking of Bankside Power Station, now
Tate Modern, looks towards the capital’s river, where in gravel
deposits at nearby Swanscombe, the oldest cranium yet discovered in Britain,
is probably that of a young woman.
Looking at
WAR, Daniel Libeskind’s probing deliberately uncomfortable forms that constitute
Manchester’s Imperial War Museum, reflect the Clacton spear, at
around 400,000 years old, easily the earliest wooden artefact ever found
in Britain.
My quest for
some fulfilment as an artist means, as just revealed, that I have to try and
deal with the exhilaration of new ideas as they present themselves to me. Running
parallel to these requirements is another need; to make paintings within a well
understood landscape tradition on canvas or paper; small, medium and large.
Brian
Graham. November 2011