Graham
Lister
Email : info@grahamlisterart.com
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Instagram : @lister_art
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Broth Art: brothart.com/collections/graham-lister
Glasgow School of Art: radar.gsa.ac.uk/profile/412
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Graham Lister is an artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He currently teaches at the Glasgow School of Art.
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My ongoing painting practice focuses on breaking down physical forms, surfaces and textures. The work encompasses an interplay between structured and intuitive gradual abstractions; investigating processes of slow looking and the distillation of glimpses and gestures through painting. My work is also positioned as an attempt to foreground the highs and lows of studio practices – inviting consideration of periods of working/ not working/ not knowing what to do.
I’m interested in thinking about how artists make, exhibit, re-work, love and hate what they do. Recent semi-abstracted paintings have focused on repeated mark-making, cursive script and have zoomed-in on small aspects of previous pieces … trying to get to the bottom of what it is about them that seems to ‘work’.
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Solo exhibitions in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Berlin have made use of painting and drawing processes as well as ambitious, large-scale, expanded installations. I have also exhibited work widely in recent group shows including in New York, London, Seoul and Beijing, and have been included in the 2025 John Moores Painting Prize.
My interests also relate to consideration of what the artist studio represents; what it means to operate in a painting/ creative space and how the very idea of the studio offers positive possibilities for making, but equally can also represent a barrier to creative development. As an artist who ‘thinks through making’, the development of visual research is connected to the process of exhibiting work in different contexts – in order to better comprehend how the seemingly abstract pushing and pulling of pigment on substrate can connect with, or can refer to, quite unexpected tactile physical experiences.
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PhD (Practice-based) - The Glasgow School of Art
FHEA - Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
MFA - Gray's School of Art
MA (Art History) - The University of Glasgow
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025
Cover-Up (Repeat), nomas* Projects, Dundee
2024
Cut Through, Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock
2023
Fragments and False Starts, Studio pavilion at House for an Art Lover, Glasgow
2020
Touching Distance, Mount Florida Gallery, Glasgow
2019
Barrier-Breakdown-Repeat, Werkstadt Kunst, Berlin
Links and Blaes, PS Mirabel, Manchester
Grille, Patriothall, Edinburgh
2018
Restructuring, Mount Florida Gallery, Glasgow
Over / Under / Cover / Repeat, The Bowery, Leeds
2016
Altermodern Painting, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow
Altermodern Everyday Archive, New Glasgow Society, Glasgow
2012
Virtual Fragments, The Briggait, Glasgow
2010
Deconstruction Theatre, Limousine Bull, Aberdeen
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
John Moores Painting Prize 2025 – shortlisted artist, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Paper Cuts, 50 MV, Liverpool
2024
Cat Flap Blink, Terrace Gallery, London
The Shape of Shape, Spit Gallery, London
Paper, Boardroom Committee Room, Glasgow
BEEP 2024, shortlisted artist, Elysium, Swansea
2023
Tightly Kit, Loose Fit, Ortega y Gasset Projects, New York
Three Movements of. Longer Work, Bloc, Sheffield
Opening, A_Place Gallery, Glasgow
Small Works, 57w57, New York
Champs Noir, Terrance Gallery, London
2022
BEEP 2022 – Shortlisted Artist, Biennial of Painting Prize, Elysium, Swansea
Annual Exhibition, Royal Academy, London Unfinished Movement, Generator Projects, Dundee
A Plot, Hatched By Two, Warbling Collective, London
2021
Society of Scottish Artists, Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2020
BEEP 2020 – Shortlisted Artist, Biennial of Painting Prize, Elysium, Swansea
Perhaps We Should Have Stayed, Warbling Collective, London
Sharing a View II, Tsinghua University, Beijing
Sharing a View I, Luxon Academy of Fine Art, Shenyang
New-Iso_Aesthetic, Derby, Artcore, Derby
2019
Prosaic Mosaic, Bloc, Sheffield
This Is Our Land, Paper Gallery, Manchester
2018
Twice As Nice, PS Mirabel, Manchester
99 Files, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje
2017
DDDD, Art Lacuna, London
Material Cover-Ups, East Street Arts, Huddersfield
2013
Studio to Showcase, The Briggait, Glasgow
2010
Forgotten Game, Edinburgh
Stick Stamp Fly, Gasworks, London
Awards & Residencies
National Lottery & Creative Scotland, Funding Award (Touching Distance) (2020)
PS Mirabel, Curator Prize, Overall Award (2018)
Mackendrick Scholarship, The Glasgow School of Art (2015)
Press & Publications
Made You Look, Instant Whip, 2024
Barrier Works, Outlast Journal (2020), Risk, Forge Magazine (17) (2017),
Peripheral ARTeries, Biennale Edition (2017), Start with What you Know, Ochre Press (2017),
Collective Nouns, United Newsletter (XX) (2017)
