March 5, 2014

Philadelphia-born artist Timmy Graham always had a penchant for the math and sciences, so he decided to fuse his academic interests with creative passion in creating massive oil paintings using a color value technique that he calls “The Fourth Dimension.” This mathematical approach, inspired by principles in Theory of Special Relativity, Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Rembrandt, and the Italian Renaissance, equates colors to specific distances on the number line, allowing Graham to create vibration and movement in his paintings. He lines his canvases with a complex geometric pattern of symbols – women dancing with snakes, dagger wielding archetypes, and cavorting gods and goddess.

Graham will have his first solo exhibition, “Timmy Graham,” at our Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (3401 Filbert St., Philadelphia) from April 1 through April 20. This show features 13 of his best “Fourth-Dimensionalist” oil paintings that have previously been exhibited in South Africa, South Korea, Germany, France, England, and throughout the United States. Graham will also appear at the Pearlstein Gallery on Thursday, April 3 at 5:30pm for an artist’s talk, followed by an exhibit opening reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

A Fulbright scholar and Pollock-Krasner recipient, Graham has received several awards and fellowships for his work. In 2009, he was awarded full fellowships at The National Art Studio and the CAMAC Centre D’Art in France, along with the Foundation Tenot individual artist grant in Paris. He was named Artist in Residence at South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand in 2010 and featured in several arts publications around the world such as Art Buzz and New American Painting.

Timmy Graham began his formal training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA where he received a certificate of Fine Arts. From there, he attended the University of the Arts and graduated with a BFA. More recently, Graham completed graduate level studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and received both an award from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His work has been featured on television and in numerous publications.