CRAWW  Incantation
solo exhibition

May 4th - 26th, 2018

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“Each piece is a story, or an aspect of a story that writes itself as I work on it. What has happened? Who are these people? What is their story? I hope to create work that is open to interpretation, asks questions and invites involvement rather than providing answers.”

Sheffield, UK painter and self-taught artist Craww is known for creating rich characters, realized with a mixture of elegance, balance and disciplined chaos. For his first Arch Enemy solo exhibition, Craww’s work appears with a new and added sense of order, as moments of passage and transformation are structured and marked by ritual, with each piece channeling its own energy into a larger narrative. 

Craww works in chapters. Each painting and collection is a continuation of themes, and a new piece of one ongoing storyline, exploring the natural world, populated by muses surrounded by flowing lines and natural forms. With each piece he reveals a little more and uncovers more about these moments seemingly ambiguous connections, and reveals another passage from the story.

It’s a balance between having a clear focus, and liking to play with ambiguity in his work. Craww says he’s never been a ‘big idea’ kind of artist, instead building his story piece by piece and moment by moment, hoping to encourage a story that writes itself.

With Incantation, his newest chapter, Craww hopes the answers are still hidden, and the ending of the story is still a mystery, inviting participating and engagement from an active viewer to consider life and death, beauty and decay, strength and fragility, and the interplay between conflicting and complementing forces of nature.

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