Introduction Touching Distance is a body of work by Glasgow-based artist Graham Lister, which was created between 2020 and 2021. The paintings and texts which make up Touching Distance invite viewers and readers to consider themes of tactility, proximity, distance and the ways in which surfaces or barriers can organise spaces - simultaneously attracting and repelling. Since 2017, painted ‘barrier works’, featuring repeated motifs of chain links, security fencing forms and woven materials have appeared in solo exhibitions by Lister across the UK and in Germany. Touching Distance looks to further consider such motifs, but such consideration now happens against the backdrop of social distancing and everyday protective meshes and screens. Solid structures transmit a feeling of containment and perform their function differently than more open chain link fences might do. A fabric weave can curtain off a space or protect an object, but also may possess a more tactile and inviting quality. Loose woven materials allow for temporary separations in space to be created, but also can picked apart to offer glimpses of that which lies beyond.
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