Patrick Graham

Patrick Graham was born in Mullingar in the midlands of Ireland in 1943. From childhood he had a natural talent for drawing and painting. He attended the National College of Art from 1960-64, during which time the teaching in the college was geared towards academic art. Graham was one of the most able students but he had great doubts about his work as he felt it did not challenge his ability. On leaving college he worked as an art teacher and in an advertising company but constantly regarded his work as a failure. By the late 1960s he had given up the art world. He did not draw for a number of years but at time returned to his art to counteract periods of despair. He often used materials, producing non-naturalistic expressive pieces. He has he said of these "I was seeing with my heart and soul rather than with my eyes." Patrick Graham began exhibiting again in 1974, and these works reveal his use of art as a means of personal expression, "art in the real sense is creation out of nothing but one's own experience, whole and entire". In recent years he has held a number of exhibitions in Dublin and Los Angeles.