JUNE 2025
NORTH GALLERY
The stubborn blindness of optimistic philosophers | Graham Dane
Painting is a very human activity that can be traced back potentially tens of thousands of years; it’s an ancient activity. In an increasingly tech-orientated world, a world of cell phones, Instagram, of instant gratification and cheap mass production, of being drowned out by the cacophony of social media, what could be more humanizing than looking at art and producing something new, unique, that requires quietude, an intellectual and emotional foundation and physical effort beyond using just your thumb and index finger.
The way I work – of small-scale studies, combining elements from one or several into larger compositions, then allowing the picture to develop is similar to the way jazz and blues musicians improvise. The finished piece is always a surprise.
All abstraction is open to interpretation which is one of its aspects that I find appealing and I rarely go into detailed explanations about meanings of titles or the literary references. What I will say is that the show title references the overly optimistic Doctor Pangloss, the tutor from Voltaite’s Candide. Make of that what you wish.
Photographs by Hans Hallinen