Born in Scotland, and now based in New York, Graham Durward creates enigmatic oil paintings infused with sublimity, sensuality and psychological tension. Basing his works on pre-existing imagery – including reproductions of paintings, photographs, film stills and anonymous pictures from the internet – he transposes his subjects into an ethereal, otherworldly realm, seeking to conjure what he describes as an ‘Ethernet aura’. Fascinated by the way in which images are processed in the contemporary age, he transforms his flat sources into seductive, immaterial mirages: aloof, intangible and forever just beyond our grasp. Based on photographs of a male model he hired online, Untitled (Man With Fruit) (2007) analogises this process through the inclusion of a pomegranate: a traditional symbol for desire. In 2009, the work was included in the landmark Saatchi exhibition Newspeak: British Art Now at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Durward has since exhibited widely in London and New York, and his works are held in institutions including the British Council Collection and the City Art Centre, Edinburgh.