Exhibitions
1998
New signatures at Pretoria Art Museum.
1999
– ABSA Atelier at the African Window (Cultural history museum), Pretoria
– Group exhibition as the opening of Gallery Vos, Sunnyside
2000
– New signatures at Pretoria Art Museum.
– Technikon Degree exhibition at the African Window, Pretoria
2001
Launch – Group exhibition with Johan Thom, Rina Stutzer and Cobus Haupt at the Open Window, Pretoria.
2004
Solo exhibition at the Outlet Gallery, Pretoria
2005
Oppitafel IV Group exhibition at Art Space, Johannesburg
2006
– Participated in Sasol Arts and Culture Month, Johannesburg.
– Took part in the Cultivaria Arts Festival with Dianne Victor, Sandra Hannekom, Chris Diederick, Andre Naude and Richard Smith
– Group exhibition, Collection, with Cobus Haupt and Sarel Petrus at Art Space, Johannesburg
– Group exhibition at opening of Platform on 18th
2007
– “….”, Group exhibition with Guy du Toit, Iaan Bekker and Sarel Petrus at Platform on 18th, Pretoria
– Group exhibition with Cobus Haupt at Magpie Gallery, Pretoria
– Group exhibition at the opening of Off the Wall Contemporary, Paarl
2008
– “This or Us” Group exhibition with Cobus Haupt and Sarel Petrus at Off the Wall Contemporary, Paarl
– “Prism” Group exhibition with Cobus Haupt, Cedric le Roux and Steven Deport at Platform on 18th, Pretoria
– “Muse 08″ Group exhibition at KKNK and Iart, Cape Town.
2009
– “In Arms” Solo exhibition at Artspace Johannesburg
Two man show with Zolile Phetshane at Dawid’s Choice gallery, Johannesburg
2011
“Pillory” Solo exhibition at Artspace Johannesburg
2011–2014
– Various Group Exhibitions
2014
“White Light” Collaborative show with photographer Alet Pretorius at Innibos Visual Arts exhibition with Pretoria Association of Arts
2015
– “Rest In Pastel” Group exhibition, “The Painters Show” at Kalashnikovv Gallery
– “Mute” Two man show with Ruhan Janse van Vuuren at David’s Choice gallery, Johannesburg
Experience
Currently a part time lecturer at TUT for Figure Drawing for 3rd years
Assisted Willem Boshoff with “Index of (B)reachings”, an installation of 85 works that bridges the divination practices of Europe and Africa.
Restoration of oil and tempera paintings in England
Painted several commissioned portraits in England
Media
“Although Graham strives towards the unbiased observation of whatever presents itself, by so doing he captures the ambiguities and dualities present within people and phenomena. In this way life and death, the beautiful and the ugly, virtue and vice are seen to co-exist, sometimes to blur or merge. The result is a rare and direct confrontation of reality through the eyes of the artist.
Graham can, and does, observe and represent, but the images are called forth with honesty and directness: not as renditions but as apparitions or “guests” called forth by the artist’s absence of attachment. In a vaguely biblical way, Graham’s figures and objects appear from a non-determinable depth on the plane, as present-at- hand in the Heideggerian sense, neutrally reposing in themselves”. – Weekender Published: 2009/08/22 09:04:43 AM. http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=79305
“DYLAN GRAHAM is one of three young Pretoria artists in a show curated by Thereza Lizamore at Artspace. His paintings have the feel of history and a kind of gloomy romance about them. His palette has a wintry Europeanness about it — all charcoal and murky teals. A work called Recollection features a pair of red high heels against a green-grey background, while Last Goodbye is an erotic painting of a woman’s legs. She is wearing heels and there is a buck skull on the floor alongside a screw. Graham’s portraits of women are all dark eyes, dark hair — brooding Celtic beauties conjuring up James Joyce’s Nora or Herman Charles Bosman’s Ella. With their broad black frames, they recall ancestral portraits one might come across in the voorkamer of an old farmhouse in Free State. There’s a stoicism that’s the key to the myth of Afrikaner womanhood — a beauty born of fortitude and forbearance.” – Alex Dodd in Businessday 2006/07/10 (http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2135831)
“The Exhibition showcases Cobus Haupt and Dylan Graham’s technical excellence in working with the traditional media of bronze casting and oil painting. Both artists investigate the intricasies of anatomy and human condition…The carefully rendered oil paintings of Graham display a deep sympathy and understanding of human experiences, emotions and memories. Graham’s work draw the viewer into a gentle, peaceful world filled with fleeting moments and a slow passing of time.” – Magpie Gallery on group show (2007)
“He does indeed take a very traditional approach; Dylan paints, and he carries on painting. He assumes nothing, and expects his viewers to find meaning on their own…He speaks of representation, form and a continuing body of work (this show displays several selections from the past year).Dylan works between a photographic-like framing of oddly banal still-lifes, and ‘from-memory’ portraits that evoke feelings of domesticity, naked/false notions of The Feminine, and trophy busts.” – Implicit Art ( HYPERLINK “http://nathanielstern.com/”http://nathanielstern.com HYPERLINK “http://nathanielstern.com/blog/index.php?p=456″) on Solo exhibition at Outlet Gallery (2004)
Artist’s Statement
By: Runette Kruger
When looking at a collection of Graham’s paintings it is clear at once that the artist has an unusual command over the media, paint. Layers of deftly applied pigment allow the subject matter to rise out of the depths of the artist’s consciousness, to be presented in turn to the consciousness of the viewer, and although the objects form part of the external reality of the artist, the work is about more than external reality. The paintings with their seemingly banal subject matter (peanuts and raisins, books, the human body, etc.) ‘show’ the viewer familiar objects in a straight forward way, and yet there is a quality to the objects and models that can be described as slightly haunting.
The works contain the silence of the Metaphysical School (de Chirico’s plazas with their long, dark shadows), but the subject matter is not Surreal. The familiarity of the things surveyed and the everydayness of what we see in the still, dark atmosphere of the paintings achieve a deft feat: they show us more than what we see. In the words of philosopher Gilles Deleuze “the idea is to see something imperceptible in the visible” (2006:279). The artist’s achievement lies in making the viewer see more than she or he would have otherwise, thereby making the world we know, a world filled with polystyrene cups, torsos, limbs and faces, larger, and newer.
The artist is somewhat agonistically conscious of his relationship with his subject matter. There is the awareness of slight intrusion into the destiny of the objects and figures – for they have now been presented and exposed to the world – as well as into the lived experience of the viewer: the viewer has been shown what the artist can see. The artist’s observation of the subject matter is simultaneously trenchant (that is, unflinchingly clear), and empathetic, showing us the ‘inner life’ of objects and the slight vulnerability of naked figures in such a way as to clarify that, finally, the world we know is mysteriously more than the sum of its parts.
