Graeme Todd was born in Glasgow and grew up in Cumbernauld. He studied painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee from 1979 to 1985. Todd's paintings explore the interaction between landscape and monochromatic painting. He is influenced by Oriental art and by nineteenth-century romantic paintings of the sublime. In his paintings Todd works in a spontaneous and intuitive manner to build up varnished layers of marks painted in a variety of materials. He lives and works near Edinburgh and teaches at Edinburgh College of Art.