Graham Black
Graham Black is a silkscreen printmaker based on a working dairy farm in St Buryan, near Penzance, in Cornwall. His affinity with West Penwith’s rugged coastal landscape motivates and underpins much of his work. The rocks and pebbles discovered on his daily walks, surfs and bike rides around Land’s End are a major influence, as are the twisted, distorted Monterey pine trees that inform his Japanese-woodblock-inspired prints.
Black works predominantly with silkscreen printmaking but increasingly eschews the traditional mechanical approach to this process by deliberately painting pigment directly onto the screen to create spontaneous inking effects, rendering each of his prints unique.
His technical skill and artistry, tethered to his fresh approach to and empathy with the local landscape, saw him selected as a member of the renowned Cornwall Crafts Association. His work is sold and seen at Newlyn Art Gallery, The Exchange in Penzance, and Trelissick and Padstow Galleries. He is also a senior lecturer in Illustration at Falmouth University.
The wilds of Kernow are a world away from Black’s former metropolitan life as art director of magazines and campaigns for some of the biggest, most respected brands in publishing, including the Financial Times, The Economist and The Observer.
He grew up in South London and Sussex, where he studied for a degree in Graphic Design and Illustration at Brighton University, but has been drawn to the Cornish coast since his early childhood. Relocating there in 2016 to focus on his printmaking, he says he has ‘finally come home’.
Tintype photograph by Tiff Hunter