Storytelling According to Andrew Cranston

Andrew Cranston is a storyteller, weaving narratives from everyday life that are poignant, peculiar, and playful.

The Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, brings the Scottish artist's paintings together for the exhibition, What made you stop here? (25 November 2023–2 June 2024).

For his first institutional exhibition, Cranston unveils 38 new and recent paintings. Ranging from vast canvases to tiny works adorning old linen-bound book covers, each captures a snippet of a story—a cat perusing a cheese board, for instance, or a crowd gathered around a koi pond.

Cranston's recent painting A snake came to my coffee table on a hot, hot day to drink there (2023) is especially charming. In this whimsical scene, a giant serpent gracefully slithers its way across the living room floor, seemingly on a mission to quench its thirst. Meanwhile, a curious boy in the crib peers over, intrigued by the unexpected visitor who has come for tea.

Speaking with Ocula Director Rory Mitchell earlier this year, Cranston explained why he likes to paint domestic scenes. He said, 'I enjoy using the domestic as a sort of anti-heroic subject. It is the heroism of everyday ordinary life which often strikes you as extraordinary, miraculous even, that there is anything there at all.'