Christian Mizon
Contemporary
Inanna
Red Clay
Height: 6 inches (15 cm)
Stamped by artist
Christian Mizon is a graduate of Camberwell College of Arts, and is based in London. He is also a guest artist at the V&A, as a tutor of drawing and sculpture.
Chrisian's clay sculptures are created spontaneously from the life model, capturing a unique moment in time. Each has its own individual stance, character and emotion.
Whilst remaining wholly contemporary, his work is inspired by past traditions, much influenced by classical and Renaissance disciplines.
We have a number of Christian's sculptures at the gallery.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for more information.
Graham Dean
1975
Refugee from England ( Memories)
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 47 x 41 inches
This painting was part of an invitation exhibition at the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery –known as the notorious Treadwell Gallery, on the theme of having an alternative view of the Queen.
“I painted this when I was 23, two years out of art college. A painting about a cliched idea of England. I got a woman to sit on it and model the figure of the Queen and then I found a photo somewhere and used that for the face. You know those tourist booths you see on Westminster Bridge and other places in London with flags, Union Jack mugs and all that? Everything in the painting is coming from that. The corgis came from postcards of corgis, the tree was from some book about English landscape, the mug was one they had for sale. I painted her holding a scrapbook, as if she was looking at memories of her own life.”
This painting was reproduced internationally: it was in a Sunday Times colour supplement and featured on TV.
Graham Dean
1978
Balaclava
Coloured pencil and gouache
Image size: 16 x 12 inches
A self-portrait of the artist.
Graham Dean
1977
Fused
Acrylic on paper on board
Image size: 72 x 30 inches
Graham Dean
1978
Slip
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 29 x 24 inches
Graham Dean
1980
Steam Room 4
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 14 x 10 inches
In keeping with Dean's passion for experiencing the subjects of his work, this image was created following his first visit to an authentic Turkish Bath in the East End of London.
Graham Dean
1980
Shedding
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 27 x 34 inches
A disturbing image of a woman in a white bikini peeling away a long strand of angry red skin from a roll of sunburnt flesh around her midriff. This was the final and most extreme painting in Dean's series on skin disorders.
Graham Dean
1977
Signpost
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 78 x 50 inches
The painting depicts a time before electronic travel boards, when train times were chalked on blackboards. The model Dean found for the painting was a gravedigger from the Oxfordshire village Wolvercote. The grave digger died a year after. He didn’t really speak much and was very much lost in his own thoughts. It was included in a group show on the theme of urban realism called Art for Society at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.
“This was the first of my train reference paintings which culminated in Compartments (trilogy) which was 1979-80. In retrospective I now wonder if they also refer to the fact that I wasn’t completely happy living in Oxford at that time and wanted to be back in London. I had just left the Landesmans house at Duncan Terrace. It’s a painting about travel and the passing of time –the days of British Rail may be romanticised now but I remember dirty, often smelly trains which didn’t run late –at least they were on the London /Oxford line.”
Graham Dean
1984
Porter
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 40 x 29 inches
The model in this painting is the same as the one in the painting Camouflage. The artist researched a lot about South Africa and apartheid. It was started in New York and then completed in Oxford. The painting was influenced by what the artist saw in New York -the artist’s first visit.
“In New York I noticed many people carrying their groceries around in these large paper bags. I then came across a photo of a South African white woman walking ahead of a black ‘boy’ carrying her groceries from the shops.”
Watercolour version is in the V&A drawings and watercolour collection.
Graham Dean
1976
The Pugilist
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 50 x 31 inches
This painting is a career changing painting for the artist. Dean was inspired by a fighter from the St Giles Fair in Oxford, which resulted in a life size depiction of an exhausted fighter slumping on a bench after the match. The fair featured exhibition fights by boxers who would parade up and down on walkways outside their tents, challenging the members of the public to take them on.
“I used a friend from Oxford to pose and apparently I made him run around the block several times to get the desired ‘slumped and exhausted’ effect. Denise applied the make up of someone who had been battered and bruised. It was a time when everything came into alignment and I thought I painted something memorable, mcharged and emotional.”
Graham Dean
1976
The Poppy Seller
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 83 x 37 inches
Graham Dean
1981
A Deck
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 86 x 69 inches
The artist's attempt at looking for situatons where there was a feeling of containment of people who were together without a means of escape. This painting was exhibited in Dean's touring exhibition 'Undercurrents' as well as the ICA exhibition in London 'Art and Sea.'
'I started looking at cruises which were very unfashionable at the time and then I started researching into sun bathing and the detrimental effects of it. In the 1980's this wasn't a subject that was being discussed. The ideas grew into a whole series of work from the cleansing i.e. steam baths to tanning/sun bathing to skin diseases'
Christian Mizon
Refugee from England ( Memories)
Balaclava
Fused
Slip
Steam Room
Shedding
Signpost
Porter
The Pugilist Graham Dean
Poppy Seller
Graham Dean A Deck
