Graham Maiden – Artist extraordinaire

Born in the small town of Dawley in Shropshire, Graham Maiden has an incredible talent which he admits doesn’t know quite where from.

His father was a miner ‘although could turn his hand to anything, from making bird boxes to crocheting and rug making’ and mother a welder, although mad on colour, always painting things.

Academically Graham confessed he was only ever good at art and went to Wolverhampton Art College where he got a BA in fine arts – painting and sculpture. From there he went to Manchester and worked at the Oldham Coliseum, making costumes and props, in particular for panto.

Much of his inspiration for his painting stem from those early days, of waiting in the wings, and are acrylics. He will start with an idea or subject matter, but doesn’t look at what he is drawing, accumulating scribbles and marks, he then pulls them together so they evolve as he goes along.

After his stint at the coliseum, he was taken on by Cosgrove Hall Films, a British animation studio and a once major producer of children’s television and animated programmes, producing classics such as Wind in the Willows, Danger Mouse and Noddy.

Initially he was taken on for four weeks, to cut out silk leaves – because of the scale of the tree you couldn’t buy them so each one had to be hand made, but ended up staying for 10 years!

In the early 90s, he crossed over the pond and ended up in San Francisco, working on the Roald Dahl classic - James and the Giant Peach; but instead of making props, he was making puppets where he got to meet the legendary American filmmaker, artist, writer and animator Tim Burton!

Working in America was ‘very hard work, very disciplined’ says Graham. He then left together with Tim to work on Mars Attacks, a comic science fiction film directed by Burton, which was ‘very exciting’. However, they eventually switched to CGI – Computer Generated Imagery but Graham believes that despite this new technology, there will always be room for stock motion animators, where objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames; hence the need for puppet makers.

He then did some children’s television and commercials in San Francisco and came back to the UK, where he landed a job at Aardman Features based in Bristol, heading the team that worked on Chicken Run.

Once the original puppet had been approved and the design and animation tested, to ensure the correct movements, Graham’s team then had to duplicate it, in total making almost 600 puppets of various scales for that production.

His next big project was working on Corpse Bride, which was down in London, where he was head of puppets. The working day was incredibly long – on feature films at least a 12-hour day and 6 or 7 days a week wasn’t unusual… very intense.

Although he or in fact puppet makers in general, do not get recognition as such for the things they make, seeing the joy on peoples’ faces is enough reward for him.

He then went to Frankfurt, and later to Berlin, spending around a year there, to work on the 50th anniversary of a German television series called The Sandman, which they wanted to turn into a feature film. He then came back to the UK and wanted to get back into painting and some friends that ran The Anchor Inn in Tintern, Chepstow asked him to paint some murals, medieval paintings and sculptures.

This said Graham, is probably his first love – painting and sculptures. He still remembers his very first drawing, of a dragon based on a book he read as a young boy called ‘Green Smoke – The Dragon’, which he entered in a competition at Eisteddfod and won, which was around 1967/8. His teachers encouraged his artistic flair, obviously seeing something in him and told him that he could do anything.

At 16, he got hold of a big cherry tree and carved it into a sculpture based on Bohemian Rhapsody, which he was obsessed with at the time, and again won.

The two things Graham says he is good at, painting and sculpting and looking around the exhibition room in the Casa de Cultura where some of his unique pieces are on display, it is certainly evident.

He moved to Spain, moving to the outskirts of Benidorm around five years ago, where he is able to continue his passion in this fabulous climate. Some of his works are displayed in a local Argentinian restaurant in Albir – Caminito and although famed for their steaks, Graham is a vegetarian and they always make him something special.

He also rents a studio in Altea – Lecuona, sharing with another Dutch artist. The large sculpture called ‘Dancers Embrace’ that is almost as tall as Graham is made out of papier-mâché and took him four months to make in his kitchen over the Christmas period.

He does most of his painting in the studio, pulling shapes together – he will often leave it for a few weeks then go back to it with a fresh perceptive, adding and enhancing it. He takes many of the colours from the mountains surrounding us, using purples, blues, and oranges. Many have inspired him, naming Tim Burton, Salvador Dali, Dutch artist Bosch and Spanish painter and sculptor Joan Miró.

Some of his works will be going to a Halloween gallery in Shrewsbury later in the year. He has also given some lectures, locally at the University of Altea and coming up shortly in Elche, he will be teaching students about animation and puppets, which is really interesting and an opportunity to pass on his years of experience in the industry.

The exhibition is on the ground floor of the Casa de Cultura in Alfaz until May 14.