Terry Gravett

Since visiting Leptis Magna and Sabratha in Libya at the age of twenty, I have been fascinated by archaeological sites around the Mediterranean and broken sculpture and artefacts displayed in world museums. The open sites are closely associated with ‘The Grand Tour’ and the subsequent visual art that was made by the cultured traveller as a topographical record and a stimulus to several centuries of Western artists from Piranesi to Picasso. The titles given to the prints reflect this classical influence: i.e. Tivoli, Romana, Ostia, Ephesus, Museum Series, Adelphoe etc. In some older work I used photographic elements and a semi cubistic structure. The new work seen here is looser and reflects my parallel interests of archaeology and landscape drawing. The ruins of the Tivoli Gardens outside Rome, built by the Emperor Hadrian are the oblique reference for these later works.