Beaston, Toronto, Canada
Beautiful & unique series of small ink, watercolor drawing on paper; some with collages. Each is part of a box set given to me by the artist in 2007. Selling the works individually to be able to allow more art lovers to own part of this wonderful series, which is around the time the artist and myself started working together to present his work to the public (begining in 2004). Items titles, medium, dimensions & prices marked individually.
“This box is a collection of small booklets. Each one is different but also similar to the others. I worked mostly in brush and ink but I also collaged photos and tape and shit. Most work was done very late at night. Enjoy … or don’t enjoy” – Graham Robinson aka BEASTON, Toronto, 2007
Biography:
Born in Ottawa and a graduate of Canterbury High School’s special art program, I moved to Toronto after secondary school to Illustration at Sheridan College and OCAD University. While I never finished degrees at either school, I value the skills and sensibilities I honed at each place.
At a young age I was fortunate to have been invited to develop and lead art workshops with the National Gallery of Canada’s Teen Council. I started exhibiting my work in 2005 as one of the initial members of Guy Berube’s La Petite Mort Gallery―an innovative Ottawa institution that had the bravery to showcase audacious art from a repertoire of diverse young artists from across Canada.
My paintings and drawings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the United States, with themes ranging from Masculinity and aging to reflections on my extensive northern wilderness canoe tripping experience throughout my youth with Canada’s famous Camp Wanapitei. The latter themes were featured in Strange Things Done in the Midnight Sun, a solo exhibition at Toronto’s Show & Tell Gallery.
I am now nearing completion of “DRY”, a large project that has been years in the making. It will bring together my greatest loves and aspirations and my greatest fears and regrets. It is a project I assigned myself in order to work through a period of depression and alcohol abuse. One night of drunken stupidity nearly cost me my drawing hand due to a cut from a glass that I had smashed in frustration. The thought of potentially losing my ability to draw and paint shook me to my core, and I have not touched alcohol since, and won’t again. I have since discovered and reclaimed positive things about myself, and I wake up with clear ideas of what I want to express in my work―perceptions of nostalgia, masculinity, humanity, sanity, sobriety, love, guilt, shame, kindness, criticism and acceptance.
Above all, I want truth and honesty in everything I do.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I take inspiration from my own journey through both dark and shameful moments and periods of great love and happiness. My art reflects my dark humour― serious issues, sketchy characters and questionable values addressed with touches of lightness.
I draw upon a wealth of sources for my ideas and images: films and cartoons, comic books, music, human psychology, feelings and emotions, nature, my canoeing in the Canadian north, and my parents’ extensive collection of children’s books, most particularly the work of my artist hero and lifelong inspiration Tomi Ungerer. My work is illustrative and colourful but with a limited palette. I work mostly in acrylics on canvas and wood panel. I often like to take a step back to show scenes with everything in view but without presumptuous or intrusive intimacy.
Music plays a large role in my image making. Each piece I create typically ends up with an associated song in my head― a result of the tune having been played ad nauseam while I did my painting. It is inspiring and collaborative, and I would like to incorporate music much more into future projects in the form of installations and videos. The work of John K Samson in particular has had a profound effect on my imagery and the way I approach the creative process in general.
I study fish and aquatic life in my free time, and these themes are prominent in my work. Based on real species and altered with emotional qualities, I document each fish on its own as a fine example of its species. I enjoy naming them in the scientific tradition of Latin Genus and Species, but with a humorous personalized twist. Verbum fabula!
My paintings often follow a lone character as he goes about his work in a desolate, dry landscape left behind by a species that has (it thinks) moved on to bigger things and better places. This is the aging, wiry, jumpsuit-clad custodian of a world in which the sun rarely sets and life adapts quickly to fill newly vacant and ever-changing environmental niches.
He travels by canoe when he can, and by foot when he has to, consistently taking down old monuments to power and masculine dominance in readiness for Mother Nature’s return to put things right. All the while he is fighting his demons, witnessing strange and beautiful sights, and trying to better understand who he is, what he feels, and why.