Celebrating 50 years of exhibiting his figurative watercolors, artist Graham Dean is an established British representational painter. Dean has been working with Ray Waterhouse successfully for decades, and now for his first show under Modern Fine Art, we are presenting a curated selection of smaller intimate works that focus on pairings of figures. Dean has exhibited internationally for 50 years and his work can be found in numerous private and public collections throughout the world. He lives and works in Brighton, England.
All works from the exhibition can be viewed online, and by appointment at 15, East 76th St. We are open Monday - Friday 9.30-6. The show includes small intimate paintings of the human body painted in Dean's distinctive style using saturated watercolour pigments. We have some works framed for display, but as we generally sell his pieces unframed, they can be shipped easily and inexpensively. all watercolours in this show range from $4,000 - $9,000. Dean also accepts commissions.
Using a method which he calls 'reverse archaeology', Graham Dean re-invents the traditional uses of watercolor resulting in a unique technique. Contrasting layers of paint are applied separately on thick, handmade rag paper from Southern India. In larger works, separate pieces are glued together with the joins forming an integral and intentional part of the work.
His images are recomposed in a creative alchemy, mixing people, body parts and time itself. Although the works are representational, they escape the illustrational to reach a universal form from something deeply personal. He has also used buildings, mysterious ships, confessionals in churches, forests and trains to enhance these atmospheric moods.
Dean views the human body as 'a holding pen for emotions' and so his figures represent vessels that contain both ideas and emotions. Following Reich's research on 'armoring', Dean envisages the body as 'a memory bank - a thinking body. ... As the world gets more congested, so will peoples' bodies'. These are the underlying themes of his selection of works at Modern Fine Art.