International star painter Graham Dean’s Still Waiting exhibition is at the New Ashgate Gallery in Farnham until March 4.

Graham Dean is a painter of identity, evoking the identity of the soul in sumptuous watercolours.

He loves characters who use their bodies, often in extreme situations.

For Graham, the body is a ‘holding-pen of emotions’. His characters are the receptacles of these emotions, ideas and memories. They are witnesses of the human condition and our complex relationship with the world.

The body becomes a canvas, torn and stretched, a vehicle for the imagination of the artist. The works are open to interpretation, free, as are the movements of watercolour, colours and sensual shapes.

Using a technique he calls “reverse archaeology”, Graham re-invents the traditional uses of watercolour, resulting in a unique technique.

Contrasting layers of paint are applied separately on thick, hand-made paper from southern India.

Each sheet has undergone tearing and overlapping to create a final composition.