Driven by the instant positive effect that art can have on both the creator and observer, Brian de Graft aka. B.D. Graft developed his practice around simple, easily recognisable, and universally relatable imagery; a visual language that’s east to understand yet remains ambiguous in meaning. Initially developing from an ambition to express emotions and reflections on personal life experiences, the early concern about the natural world and the environment transmuted into a celebration of life in every form.
Simultaneously, the recent experience of becoming a father presented the idea of building a family home and looking out at the world from such a perspective. And in order to explore these personally important subjects, the German-born, UK-raised, and Amsterdam-based artist outlined a safe, comfortable space in which he is working with recurring imagery, characters, elements, and settings that feel close while carrying an underlying symbolic value. Inspired by the Stoic philosophy and the aspiration to control things that are within our power and be indifferent to ones that are not,
B.D. Graft is purposely challenging himself to let go of that control and allow for things to take their course. In order to do so, he is fighting the temptation to work in a way that is recognised or appreciated. Instead, he chooses for the work to remain playful, approachable, stripped of any intention to impress, and inspiring for others to try it out, but always stimulating for himself. In his practice, this conducts the looser depiction of desired imagery, more focused utilisation of the materiality of paint, as well as interest in capturing the essence of the set scene, beyond its physical qualities.
Transforming the representational framework into raw, sometimes abstract passages, it points at the artist’s transitional position and affinity for the messy, heavily textured abstractions by the likes of Martha Jungwirth, Tracy Emin, Rita Ackermann, Tal R, or CoBrA artists. Shifting to the bold use of oil sticks and their unique form of capturing the dynamics of the process, the paintings and drawings are marked with semi-intentional colour mixing of oily material and the rich, organic-looking textures built from the buttery medium.