Instruments of Penetration - Tools of the Trade, 1984
Watercolor on Paper, 48" x 60"
Hammer Head, 1984
Watercolor on Paper, 23 1/2" x 30 1/4"
Graham Ashton was born at Wirral, Cheshire, England, in 1948. He earned his B.A. in fine art from the Coventry School of Art in 1970. Ashton's work has been exhibited in galleries and art spaces in England, Ireland, Australia, and the United States. He lives in London and spends part of each year in the United States. Ashton works in a variety of media, including oils and watercolor. His treatment of oil paint and watercolor are similar: he lays down washes of thinned paint, building up layers that float across the canvas or paper. Among his influences are such postwar American painters as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, as well as mid-nineteenth-century practitioners of the English watercolor tradition.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.