Merging his own personal history with anecdotes, jokes, and literature, Andrew Cranston's canvases are filled with figurative vignettes of dappled, dreamlike scenes that grapple with the strangeness of ordinary life.
Read MoreBorn in Hawick, Scotland, Cranston completed his BFA in Fine Art at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen in 1993 before receiving his MFA in Painting from London's Royal Academy of Arts in 1996.
Andrew Cranston's paintings draw from a variety of sources, merging his own personal history with anecdotes and jokes, passages from literature, secondary accounts, and observations from ordinary life.
A recurring theme in Cranston's work is the representation of rooms that have been conjured up in works of literature. Notably, his two-panel work Illustration for Franz Kafka story (2nd version) (2007) depicts the bedroom of the hapless travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, from Kafka's novel The Metamorphosis (1915).
A sense of surrealism is achieved through Cranston's repetitive layering of pigments, for which he often uses hardback book covers as his support, resulting in beautiful vignettes of dappled dreamlike scenes.
Incorporating both rough and scored oil paint alongside smoothed layers of thick varnish, Cranston offers viewers a glimpse at the lower layers of his paintings, allowing a variety of colour and texture to seep through to the surface.
This densely textured, dappled effect in works such as Deja vu and Waiting for the Bell (both 2021) recalls the patterned figurative scenes of Post-Impressionists such as Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard.
In 2014, Cranston was awarded the Arts Foundation Fellowship for Painting by the Royal Scottish Academy.
Andrew Cranston's solo exhibitions include Waiting for the Bell, Karma, New York (2021); But the dream had no sound, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2018); If I were a carpenter and other stories, Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London (2017); Andrew Cranston: Paintings from a Room, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2016); Book Launch: Who is this who is coming?, Rob Tufnell, London (2015); Who is this who is coming?, Display Gallery, London (2014); What to do after a death in Scotland, Hamish Morrison Galerie, Berlin (2013); Im Büro, Hamish Morrison Galerie, Berlin (2010); and Stoorsooker, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2000), among others.
Cranston's group exhibitions include Faces in the Water, Ingleby at Cromwell Place, London (2021); On Leaving, Modern Art, London (2021); Dear John, Adams and Ollman, Portland (2021); HOME, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2020); (Nothing but) Flowers, Karma, New York (2020); Painters Beach Club: Telescope, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2019); TWENTY, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2018); Outside, Karma, New York (2016); Between the Late and Early, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2013); Dorian Gray, Second Guest Projects and Ana Christea Gallery, New York (2012), among others.
Cranston's works have been collected by museums and public collections worldwide, including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; Unilever Collection, London; and Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, among others.
Cranston's Instagram account can be found here.
Annabel Downes | Ocula | 2022
