Lew Graham

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I’ve studied art at the Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford, England, and at Syracuse University. My work is in private and corporate collections in New York City and throughout the Northeast. Since I moved to Chapel Hill I’ve shown and sold my work locally, in Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh.

I’m a consigning member with FRANK gallery in Chapel Hill, and I am represented by the Jan Weiss gallery in New York City. I am a member of the Orange County Artists Guild and I have been a participant in their annual Open Studio Tour from 2011 through 2015.

My paintings are done in the encaustic medium, on birch plywood panels. (See the "Encaustic" page for a full description of the medium). The encaustic medium allows me to paint multiple layers of color, to achieve depth and luminosity. My "Deepen" series seeks to create an experience of depth by combining many layers of color. These pieces provide a quiet, mysterious presence, significantly "Deepen: Gray/Blue" and "Deepen: Aqua." Besides their deep color field, depth in the "Deepen" paintings is suggested by small relief images pressed into the wax with color rubbed into them. In "Deepen: Crackle," I incised pottery-like crackle patterns with an etching needle and rubbed color into them. In "Deepen: Miniatures," I heated found objects like a dog tag chain and then pressed them into the wax.

The "Moons" pieces, following on from the Deepen series, are also working toward greater depth. I'm using my etching needle and my favorite dog tag chain to suggest motion deeper into space. The circular objects in pieces occur at different points in space, some far away. I always want to draw the viewer into my pieces, the deeper, the better.