“I'm sometimes called a 'documentary photographer' but... a man operating under that definition could take a sly pleasure in the disguise. Very often I'm doing one thing when I'm thought to be doing another.”                            
                                                                                                              Walker Evans

Paul Graham (UK, 1956) belongs to group of photographers born in the 1950’s, who form the last generation to engage with photographic practise before it became part of the contemporary art world. Whilst later image makers would approach the medium as ‘artists using photography’, this grouping - which includes Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Rineke Djikstra, Thomas Struth and Philip-Lorca DiCorcia - committed themselves to the medium at a time when it not an artistic strategy, but an expresssion of a visual consciousness of our world.

Graham was among the first photographers to unite contemporary colour practise with the classic genre of 'social documentary'. In 1981/2 he completed 'A1 - The Great North Road', a series of colour photographs from along the length of the British A1 road, which had a transformative effect on the black and white tradition that had dominated British art photography to that point. This work, along with his other photographs of the 1980's - the colour images of unemployment offices in 'Beyond Caring' (1984-85), and the sectarian marked landscape of Northern Ireland in 'Troubled Land' (1984-86) - were pivotal in reinvigorating and expanding this area of photographic practice, by both broadening it's visual language, and questioning how such photography might operate. Photographers such as Martin Parr made the switch to colour soon after, and a new school of British Photography evolved with the subsequent colour work of Richard Billingham, Tom Wood, Paul Seawright, Anna Fox, Simon Norfolk, Nick Waplington, etc.

Since then Graham has continued to explore the fertile territory where the documentary and artistic aspects of photography coalesce, often tackling difficult subject matter for a medium that is firmly based in the observable world. 'New Europe' (1988-1993) used a poetic flow of images to look at the tension between the shadow of history and the rush to an economic superstate in Western Europe. 'Empty Heaven' (1989-1995), considers the relationship between historical trauma and the childish fantasy world in Japan - themes that would later become central to the "Superflat" movement of contemporary Japanese art. More recently his work has reflected an examination of what we expect from a photographic image, be it a portrait - as in the hard:soft images of young people in 'End of an Age' (1996-98); or questioning what actually registers in our consciousness, with 'American Night' (1998-2003), which reflected the social fracture of American society through overexposed, near invisible white images. Most recently Graham completed 'a shimmer of possibility' (2004-2006) that embraces overlooked moments of life in todays United States, whilst also examining photography's ability to compress or expand time, through flowing sequences of images.

At a time when art photography is increasingly staged, (Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Thomas Demand) or holds the world at a conceptualized distant view (Andreas Gursky, Berndt and Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth), Graham's work distinguishes itself by retaining a firm and full commitment to life as it unfolds; to an understanding that at its core photography begins with an unblinking engagement with the world. Embracing this crucial axiom of photography his work affirms this central area of photographic practice by expanding its visual language, and questioning what such photography could say, be, or look like.

Excerpt from Gallery Press Release, 2008.