Artist's Statement

"I have always had a liking for images which engage the eye and drawings that are spontaneously arrived at rather than pre-ordained. Pictures may appear simple, initially, but they reveal much more after contemplation. A good picture should be able to bear lots of looking at." Graham Fransella

Graham Fransella's striking canvases and large scale etchings capture an explosion of colour and multi-layered abstractions. Fansella is concerned with presence adn absence - the presence of human from and the absence of personal identity. His work presents symbolic snapshots of people, places and time. As Peter Timms says "he takes standard symbolic images - the standard male figure, the portrait bust, the meandering river - prises them open to reveal their consituent parts then reassembles those parts in various ways as a series of visual anagrams, making them reveal new and unexpected meanings."

Fransella's work lies between abstract and figurative. He is an Archibald Prize Finalist, a Dobell Drawing Prize Finalist and Wynne Watercolour Prize Winner.

"...like Fransella’s images, powerfully and convincingly real..." Edmund Capon

"Graham Fransella’s etchings are simultaneously direct, simple and confronting, as well as meditative experiences" Professor Sasha Grishin  

"Fransella’s work demonstrates a ... wonderfully subtle emergence and submergence of forms" Dr. Dugald McLellan