Philip Braham graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in 1980, and completed a Postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Holland the following year. He then undertook a year of research as visiting artist at the University of California at Los Angeles before returning to his native Scotland. In 1989 he joined the illustrious stable of Raab Gallery London/Berlin. His career includes 24 solo exhibitions to date; in addition to numerous group shows both nationally and internationally.
Braham’s paintings and photographs are held in many public and private collections and art foundations. Among the awards received are the highly 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 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow, Raab Gallery Berlin, and at the Royal Scottish Academy for the Edinburgh International Festival in 2010.
“Philip Braham is a Scottish artist whose paintings emerge from 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.”
“In 1995 I read Simon Schama’s book ‘Landscape and Memory’ and his method of thinking about history through ‘the archives of the feet’ became immensely important to me. By being receptive to the physical landscape while thinking through the events that gives a site its significance, I found that I absorbed the presence of place profoundly: the sounds, smells, climactic conditions and the temporal unfurling of nature coincide with the gaze.”
“A photograph is limited to capturing what a scene looks like at that moment, but painting, which develops slowly over time, allows the phenomenological intelligence to seep into the layers of the picture to better represent the experience of being there. There is a fidelity to experience engendered in subtle brushstrokes that goes beyond a photographic likeness. The dual role of the artist is to be open to the existential moment that initiates an artistic vision, and then to give oneself over to it in the act of painting.”
“I recognise that it is a great privilege to live one’s life as an artist, and I am grateful to the galleries, and above all, to the collectors who have enabled me to take this path unhindered by expectations or preconceptions.”
