Graham Marchant with Harvey in his Balmain garden, 2018

Graham Marchant with Harvey in his Balmain garden, 2018

ARTIST STATEMENT

My principal mediums are oil paint, watercolour, printmaking and drawing - worked on over a variety of different formats and scale. I am primarily concerned with how paintings and art works are made and my oeuvre is based on the close searching observation of the object and the natural world. For subject matter I am interested in gardens, manicured spaces, the meticulous rendering of detailed pattern and the interplay of light between the interior and exterior. A recurring theme is an arranged still life placed in front of a window, allowing the interaction of light to be experienced and the employment of such compositional devices as a window, an architectural arch or a structured botanical feature.

Whilst fascinated by the objects that constitute the paintings subject, it is more the challenge of painting them, of organizing the composition, of modifying the drawing, and attending to the orchestration of tone and line that interests me. My curiosity is sustained to the final stages by the adjustment and balancing of the colour through a fastidious process of glazing and scumbling. Individual works will spawn numerous variants in both similar and different media, providing ongoing scope for redefinition and continuing development. It is a gradual and deliberate process involving continuous transformative action through successive stages of revision and when moving through to printmaking and drawing, paying due cognisance to the potential and limitations of each medium.

Drawing occupies the central place in my practice. It is the common denominator. Drawing allows other things to happen sometimes initial drawings develop as ends in themselves. Often they will go through a further process of being traced or transferred, either at the same or different scale, for subsequent realization as another work.

- Graham Marchant