Restructuring was a solo Exhibition, at Mount Florida Gallery and Studios, Glasgow. It took place in November 2018, and was envisaged as a test-bed for new visual works, and as a way to crystallise critical-thinking which had been taking place through the latter part of 2018.

The Exhibition featured a new central work, a large paper ball. This work was produced from paintings of repeated forms and barrier materials on paper from 2016-18, which were 're-structured' within the studio; sewn together to create a 60m long single painted work.

This 60m long work was transported to the Mount Florida gallery, unrolled and was scrunched up into a new, unique structure which dominated the relatively compact gallery space. An essay accompanied the exhibition, which was open to the public and supported by Mount Florida Gallery and Studios.

Exhibition Abstract

Restructuring
New work by Graham Lister

Organising differently,
Making something clearer,
Changing the pattern.

For the last three years, painted works produced by Glaswegian artist Graham Lister have often related to repeated aesthetic patterns present within everyday physical barrier materials, including chain link fences, building site hoardings and construction site meshes. With a making process initially derived from a representational mode of painting, he has developed iterative processes by which visual forms and linear structures are distilled, simplified, and are eventually presented as large-scale works on paper. Such works have been showcased and indeed utilised as part of architectonic structures in Art Lacuna, London (DDDD, 2017) and at the Bowery, Leeds (Over/Under/Cover/Repeat, 2018). Within these exhibitions, the painted works mimic the original function of the fence / mesh / barrier, and are draped, hung or rolled-out to alter the way in which the gallery space is inhabited or traversed.

For Restructuring at the Mount Florida Gallery, pieces previously created for site-specific exhibitions across the UK, have been combined to offer up a new expanded painted work in the space. The exhibition organises these existing works differently, looks to make the everydayness of the subjects clearer and through the restructuring mechanism of the scrunched-up paper ball, changes their original patterned surfaces.

Graham Lister is a painter who is based in Glasgow. His work has been shown at venues across the UK. In 2018 he has been the recipient of the PS Mirabel Award, has been long-listed for the Contemporary British Painting Prize and has recently worked with a group of artists as part of #99 Files in Skojpe, Macedonia. He completed a practice-based PhD at the Glasgow School of Art in 2016 and has previously studied for an MFA (Grays) and an MA in Art History (Glasgow).