Graham Seaton

Bio

My PhD title:

The Object as Photograph (working title).

My PhD summary:

In the early stages of the project, I set out to illustrate or to outline a relationship between two mediums, namely photography and sculpture. As part of my own art practice, my original engagement with photography both as a student and practitioner, was to use photography as a means of documenting sculpture and site-specific/works. Increasingly, I wanted to understand how the use of photography had become an essential component within my own practice and to employ photography as a significant component when developing and expressing ideas, both visually and philosophically. This way of thinking came about having been influenced by various artists as diverse as Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Thomas Demand, Gabriel Orozco as well as contemporary artists such as Erin Shirreff.

This project is therefore motivated by the study of selected artists who’ve formulated a dialogue between photography and sculpture, and where the photograph functions beyond that of a record or document. Consequently, my practice will be theoretically and contextually informed by the history of such processes and by the concerns of selected case studies, art theory, and philosophy.

The works in question initially may be considered disparate or disconnected although they ask the viewer to re-evaluate the material object as a direct photographic reference.

This practice-based element acts as a form of experimentation/questioning, and as a series of works which express themselves as new readings of the artworks discussed, or as attempts to make visual translations of the philosophical ideas expressed within the thesis.

More about me:

Born in East London in 1959, I studied Fine Art (Sculpture) from 1993 to 1996 at the University of East London where I graduated with a first-class degree. From 1998 to 2000 I studied at Wimbledon School of Art gaining a master’s degree in Site Specific Sculpture. My work has been exhibited since 2000 at various galleries and site-specific venues and I have been teaching since 2001. Teaching positions have included the City Literary Institute (City Lit), London Metropolitan University and since relocating to the Southwest, Somerset College of Art & Technology (as it was then known).

I began my part-time PhD Study in October 2017 and after taking a period of interruption am now hoping to complete in Summer 2024.