20 July - 6 August 2017
about the exhibition
Graham Fransella is a painter, printmaker and sculptor who continues to explore the figure and the landscape -themes that have remained constant over his extensive career. Strong black strokes trace the outlines of figures, so stripped of detail that they become symbolic and reminiscent of pictograms or graffiti. His prints and paintings are richly layered gestural works that explore the relationship between presence and absence, working on many levels without being contrived and with a spontaneitythat invites interpretation by the viewer. His charismatic mark-making is the distillation of several decades of draughtsmanship and what may at first appear to be simple lines and primitive figures are also sophisticated, multi-layered abstractions.For Graham, the creative process informs the conceptual content of his work through the randomness and freedom of mark making. Ultimately these works, through the skill and experience of the artist, arrive at a successful resolution. As art historian and critic Sasha GrishinAM, states in a recent review- “Graham Fransella is an artist who has stuck to his guns and with time his art is becoming progressively stronger with a growing profundity in its resonance.” Above all, these distinctive, powerful and often playful works use the presence of human form and the absence of personal identity to portray the human condition.
Graham Fransella has had over fifty solo shows across Australia as well as Europe. He has been exhibiting with Beaver Galleries since 1993, including eight solo exhibitions and representation at the Melbourne Art Fair. His work has been selected for the Archibald, Wynne, Sulman and Dobell Drawing Prizes at the Art Gallery of NSW and he has won the Trustees Watercolour Prize five times, most recently in 2011. Graham’s work is represented in numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Parliament House and Artbank.
