Terry Gravett (b.1938)

Hoop and Pole

Born in England in 1938, Terry Gravett studied painting in London. In 1966 he spent a year working as a lithographic technician at Croydon School of Art, during which time he developed an interest in printmaking. In 1990, Gravett moved to Northern Ireland where he was awarded Printmaker in Residency by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Exhibitions have included a solo show at Belfast Print Workshop Gallery in 2011; group shows at Original Print Gallery, First International Triennial of Graphic Arts in Sofia and the Rubicon Gallery, Dublin. His work is represented in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Ulster Museum, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

A visit to the archaeological sites of Leptis Magna and Sabratha in Libya at the age of twenty sparked Gravett's lifelong interest in the ancient classical world and a fascination with the broken sculpture and artefacts found in the Mediterranean and displayed in museums across the world, has inspired his prints. While some of his earlier work used photographic elements and a semi cubistic structure, his more recent work, of which Hoop and Pole is an example, is looser and reflects his parallel interests of archaeology and landscape drawing. The Roman ruins of Tivoli Gardens, built by the Emperor Hadrian, are the oblique reference for this series of work, where hoop shapes convey movement of form while referencing the games and athleticism central to a culture which attached a high status to leisure time.