Gloria Graham
Encyclopedia
Gloria Graham is an American artist based in New Mexico. Her work includes sculpture
, painting
, and photography
.
Her work is often based on science and geometric patterning, such as in a series of line drawings and paintings she did of the atomic structure of various crystals and minerals, which were inspired by the work of the physicist Max Von Laue
.
Collector Panza di Biumo has written:
She also has done large works of a similar nature by drawing the molecular structure of things such as salt and quartz on walls.
More recently, she has become increasingly involved in photography, one of her pieces being an installation project with she did with the artist Allan Graham
called "Add-Verse" in which she took photos of twenty-five poets and Allan Graham videotaped their hands/manuscripts, while they read their poetry.
s, cylindrical shapes and round objects.
In the mid 1980s she developed a technique of painting on wooden panels with a mixture of kaolin and hide glue, similar to the method used in the making of Tibetan tankas, which she then drew over with graphite. Graham has stated however that when she first began using kaolin, that she was unaware of the connection to Tibetan painting. Other materials she has used include aluminum, transparent paper, and graphite. In her Famine Series, the flags of eight African countries were painted on used damask napkins, a comment on our relationship to the fed and to the hungry.
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, and photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
.
Background
Graham received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Baylor University in Waco, Texas (1962) and attended the University of California in Berkeley (1962), as well as the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She then studied sculpture in Paris (1965). She began her artistic career in 1975 with a series of ceramic artifacts and later, in the mid 80's onward, creating works on canvas and wooden panels.Her work is often based on science and geometric patterning, such as in a series of line drawings and paintings she did of the atomic structure of various crystals and minerals, which were inspired by the work of the physicist Max Von Laue
Max von Laue
Max Theodor Felix von Laue was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals...
.
Collector Panza di Biumo has written:
She also has done large works of a similar nature by drawing the molecular structure of things such as salt and quartz on walls.
More recently, she has become increasingly involved in photography, one of her pieces being an installation project with she did with the artist Allan Graham
Allan Graham
Allan Graham, who sometimes uses the name Toadhouse, is a contemporary American artist based in New Mexico...
called "Add-Verse" in which she took photos of twenty-five poets and Allan Graham videotaped their hands/manuscripts, while they read their poetry.
Materials
Though best known for her paintings, Graham has worked in other media. Her earlier work was mostly pottery: urnUrn
An urn is a vase, ordinarily covered, that usually has a narrowed neck above a footed pedestal. "Knife urns" placed on pedestals flanking a dining-room sideboard were an English innovation for high-style dining rooms of the late 1760s...
s, cylindrical shapes and round objects.
In the mid 1980s she developed a technique of painting on wooden panels with a mixture of kaolin and hide glue, similar to the method used in the making of Tibetan tankas, which she then drew over with graphite. Graham has stated however that when she first began using kaolin, that she was unaware of the connection to Tibetan painting. Other materials she has used include aluminum, transparent paper, and graphite. In her Famine Series, the flags of eight African countries were painted on used damask napkins, a comment on our relationship to the fed and to the hungry.
Public collections holding work
- Albright-Knox Art GalleryAlbright-Knox Art GalleryThe Albright-Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.-History:...
, Buffalo, NY - Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, NY, NY - Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto, Italy
- The Lannan Foundation
- The Broida Foundation
- Fisher Landau Center, Long Island City, New York
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
- Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, Switzerland
- Museum of Albuquerque, Albuquerque, NM
- Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM
- Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
- Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM
- North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND