Richard Grayson is an artist, writer and curator based in London. A practising artist since 1979, he was co-founder of the Basement Group in Newcastle upon Tyne (1979–84), an artist-run project and venue that hosted performances and commissioned ‘live art’, later becoming Projects UK. Throughout his career, Grayson has been involved with creating and organising experimental art events, with notable appointments including Director of the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide (1992–98) and Artistic Director of the 13th Biennale of Sydney in 2002, ‘(The World May Be) Fantastic’.

Grayson’s photographs, text-based works, drawings and videos blend humour, curiosity and a deep thoughtfulness about the way the world works – as well as the way we think it works. Preconceptions, received information, history and systems of belief are persistent targets, and past works include a series of paintings listing things he does not understand (Negative Space (Things I don’t understand), 2000), spiralling texts predicting the end of the world (Ways the World Ends, 2002–03), and star charts of government figures involved with Middle East politics (Intelligence, 2004–05) – all question established systems of knowledge and understanding.