In this new collection of paintings and photographs, Philip Braham explores the landscape around his new home and studio in the marches between Highland and Lowland: ancient disputed lands, rich in human history: agricultural, religious and violent. The thin mantle of the earth bears witness to the human struggle, the beautiful indifference of the passing seasons dictating the rhythms of farming, social life, warfare and death.
Philip Braham has exhibited with The Scottish Gallery since 1984 and Closer to Home presents his sixth solo exhibition with The Gallery. We are delighted to showcase this haunting body of work from an artist deserving of particular contemplation.
A graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Philip Braham first came to prominence in the 1980s with the rise of figurative painting in Scotland, which culminated in The Vigorous Imagination, an exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1987. His career includes 27 solo exhibitions to date; in addition to numerous group shows both nationally and internationally. Among the awards received are the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy Guthrie Award for painting and the Royal Scottish Academy Morton Award for lens-based work. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, The Scottish Gallery and at the Royal Scottish Academy. A longstanding interest in continental aesthetics informs his pedagogical role as Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art Practice at the University of Dundee. He was elected to the Royal Scottish Academy in 2021.
Braham’s paintings are informed by the Northern European engagement with landscape as a metaphor for the human condition. Recent projects reflect on the temporal nature of our existence through personal recollection and collective history, set within the slowly evolving landscape that bears us forward. Fidelity to experience is fundamental to his practice, and this brings a poetic grace to his technical mastery of oil painting.