Photoreal art looks good enough to eat

11:23am Wednesday 30th April 2008

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Artist Sarah Graham talks to Kerry Ann Eustice about the process and influences behind her photoreal work You could easily mistake artist Sarah Graham's work for photography, so life-like are her paintings.

Sarah has been painting in a photorealistic style since art school, but unlike other painters from the movement - such as Chuck Close, Gerhard Richter and Denis Peterson, who depict the mundane or the tragic - she portrays the sweeter side of life.

"The photorealists' idea was to paint stuff you usually wouldn't look twice at. I'm still doing that but with sweets and toys."

"Their technique creates a photoreal look but is still evidently painted, I wanted to emulate that," said Sarah.

"But I'm more colourful and vivid and fun.

"Their idea was to paint stuff you usually wouldn't look twice at. I'm still doing that but with sweets and toys.

"As children these things captivate us, my work shows they can captivate still as an adult."

Cheeky and fun her subjects may be - mainly down to some early advice from her late father who said "your paintings are so full of joy, don't ever lose that" - yet the process used to create them on canvas is technical and meticulous.

Paintings can take a month to complete and another month before they are touch dry.

"It's all painted by hand," she said. "I start off with a photograph - sometimes I take hundreds before I'm happy with an image."

"I'm lucky, I've always had the ability to see something then recreate it in paint quite easily."

Before the oil painting can even start, there is a full in-perspective guide sketched out in yellow acrylic, followed by a full colour acrylic painting. She uses a huge range of paintbrushes, some very small.

"The blurred areas are the most technically demanding, I look forward to the focused bits," said Sarah.

"I'm lucky I've always had the ability to see something then recreate it in paint quite easily."

Sarah Graham on display at the Castle Galleries, Bluewater until the end of June. Artist appearance on May 4, 12 to 3pm.