Biography

Lewis Graham (b.2001) born in Birmingham, and currently living and working in Worcester, Graham's work is about a relationship with place and landscape, in particular the Client Hills south west of Birmingham. Intuitively, Graham has developed a 'sense of place' in his work and for the current time, this small group of hills that divide the West Midlands from Worcestershire and Warwickshire are the fertile ground for his paintings and drawings. Historically, the hills have their own stories of lore from Roman skirmishes to St Kenelm's martyrdom, as described in legends, which occurred when he was beheaded in the Clent Hills by Askobert, his sister's lover. In the 18th century, George, 1st Lord Lyttelton installed the Lyttelton follies; a Greek temple, an Egyptian obelisk, a medieval castle and ‘Stone Age’ standing stones, all created between 1747 and 1758  designed by Lord Camelford, Thomas Pitt of Encombe, Henry Keene, James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, and Sanderson Miller. In recent history, the Client Hills have been, and continues to be a place of recreation for the West Midlands work force, an escape away from the industry of the Black Country and Birmingham. The hills are flanked by the towns, villages and road systems, the barrier to the sprawl of The West Midlands conurbation, only second in size to Greater London, home to over 2.5 million people. 

“I am drawn to the hills. Maybe I escape there? Clent is why I make landscape paintings, they were the only landscape growing up. From up there you can literally throw a stone into Birmingham, from Weasley you can peer over Longbridge the ghost of the old Rover car factory, and on a clear day you can make out Dudley Castle and Zoo. At first I was making landscape paintings and drawings of  the places familiar to me, over time I realised the hill paintings  represent much more, they are my sense of this place. Ambitiously I want Clent to be, what Cookham was to Stanley Spencer or Northampton is for Alan Moore. For now it is a focus on or an escape to the hills! Like, for so many others, the hills always were and remain an escape for people, be it a Lord pretending, playing amongst his follies or the working people of the Black County seeking fresh air the hills both except and repel us, dividing the green shires from the Black Country and Brum.”

• Lewis Graham in conversation with Division of Labour 2024