I use patterns to stitch ideas together, to engage the viewer and allow them to become aware of the painting process and decision-making.
-- Andrew Graves, 2023
EASTWOOD FINE ART: Within your practice, you have developed a distinct abstract language that layers vibrant colour and nebulous form. Can you tell us about your process and approach?
ANDREW GRAVES: Yes, I’m keen on the idea of something being nebulous, the forms in my work have a kind of handmade geometry, they are also roomy. I use patterns to stitch ideas together, to engage the viewer and allow them to become aware of the painting process and decision-making. The complexities of creating a composition are evident. The colour also speaks on a different level, an emotional one that has a subjective reach to the viewer. Both elements are playful and open, yet also maintain an element of doubt which makes them human and connectable.
EFA: Are there historical or daily sources that you look to when developing your compositions?
AG: I’m fascinated by the history of painting, its shifting historical place and its resilience, I love early Modernism and the developing language of abstraction, I’m always looking at others' work, artists and makers, there have been some lovely painting shows this year in London recently that touch on these ideas including After Impressionism at the National Gallery, Nicole Eisenman at Whitechapel Gallery, Philip Guston at Tate Modern. Another favourite at the moment is Julien Nguyen who has an eccentric and fascinating Twitter (X) feed that’s a great insight into his studio and the materials of a painter, he shares recipes for drawing materials and his works in development.
EFA: While your paintings are visually abstract, their titles describe concrete or emotive states. Could you tell us more about your process of naming your works and how you see them as relating to the composition?
AG: Yes, the title is an opportunity to add a layer of meaning to a painting, not to explain what they are or do but to add something alongside the composition. I think this is especially true with abstract works, a title, in my case usually a word, adds a resonance, an action or emotion to frame the painting and help its reading.
EFA: For SPOTLIGHT, you are showing two new paintings – Stay, 2022 and Pendulum, 2023 – could you tell us more about each of these works?
AG: These two works for SPOTLIGHT share a language, and it would be nice to think there are several ways to read both paintings; they are open and uncontrived. In Stay the eye can follow the form as if it might be a line that’s taking a walk through the painting, then you realise that there is a different way to read it, so you abandon that reading but whilst doing that perhaps a third possibility is suggested. The line is both a line and a form, and for this reason, conjures a sense of movement across the painting. It shifts colour and weaves back and forth, journeying up and down the composition. The edges of my forms are always active, the boundaries porous and the palettes are harmonies. There is an attempt at a subjective timbre from which the colours derive and that is explored across the canvas. While in Pendulum, several forms float across a green ground, which itself detaches from the frame as its own nebulous form.