Graham Collins

FLORIDA

2015
oil and acrylic on canvas, thread, wenge frame, and aluminum support
34 x 27 x 2 inches

Brooklyn-based artist Graham Collins explores the basic principles that constitute a painting in his recent Sewn Painting series, where pre-existing oil and acrylic canvases are cut and reconfigured into new works. In Florida, the title suggests a location and natural world that the painterly brushstrokes and sections of canvas resist. The strong vertical and diagonal stitched lines keep the viewer’s eye traveling within the wenge wood frame, one of Collins’ original contributions to the piece. According to the artist, in these re-stretched paintings, he tries to “coax these new forms out of the existing ones, the way a sculptor might follow marble veins or wood grain for inspiration.”

photo credit: andres ramirez