Andrew Cranston on memory, books, and the images that shape his painting
What happens when a painter treats memory as a material rather than a subject? In a new conversation released on April 29, 2026, Scottish artist Andrew Cranston (b. 1969) traces the sources behind his work, from childhood recollections and family stories to the books, films, poems, and television programs that continue to echo through his studio practice.
Speaking with Ben Luke on the podcast A brush with…, Cranston describes a painting process in which remembered moments are filtered, altered, and sometimes nearly erased before they reach the canvas. His work is rooted in time: not only in the events he recalls, but in the surfaces he chooses and the marks he leaves behind. He often paints on the covers of old hardback books, their faded exteriors carrying the evidence of years of use and exposure.
That physical sense of time runs through the conversation. Cranston reflects on the fragility of images, the way repetition can deepen meaning, and what he calls his “fight with visibility.” His paintings, he suggests, are shaped as much by silence and uncertainty as by narrative. They hold a tension between clarity and disappearance, between the seen and the half-remembered.
The interview also maps a wide field of influence. Cranston names Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Paul Klee, Pierre Bonnard, and Winifred Nicholson among the painters he returns to, alongside writers such as Hugh MacDiarmid and Elizabeth Bishop. He also points to the films of Nicholas Roeg and the teleplays of Dennis Potter, underscoring the extent to which his practice moves across media rather than remaining within painting alone.
The episode arrives as Cranston’s exhibition “I’m going in a field” is on view at Modern Art, Bennet Street, London, through May 30. The podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, which also offers digital guides to institutions including The Hepworth Wakefield, The Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, Scotland, and the Holburne Museum in Bath. Together, the interview and the exhibition offer a clear view of an artist for whom painting is less a fixed image than a record of looking, remembering, and revising.
