Anne Graham is an artist and the Head of School of Fine Arts, Faculty of Arts and Education, at the University of Newcastle. Known principally for her public artworks and sculptural installations, a continuing theme in Graham’s work has been performance and interaction with the community. Her tent series, begun as a response to the Artspace project, 'Working in Public with Walla Mulla’ (1992), often involves sustained interaction with communities, including displaced and marginal dwellers.
One aspect of Graham’s interactions has been collaboration with the subjects of her portraiture. In these works she collects possessions, photographs personal spaces and interviews the 'sitters’ to develop a complex assemblage of material that provides a portrait of their life rather than their appearance.
In addition to this research-based performance and installation, Graham creates objects that function aesthetically and have a life of their own but carry with them the intensity of experience arising from the other activities. On occasion these are residues and by-products of the performance, experienced not as reliquaries but as unique and self-sufficient artworks.
Graham has held over 23 solo exhibitions, with representation in many prestigious national and international exhibitions, including the 2003 Echigo-Tsumari Necklace project, organised by Art Front Gallery, Tokyo; 'Construction and Process’, an exhibition featuring artists from 25 countries held in Poland in 2000; and the 6th Biennale of Sydney: 'Origins, Originality + Beyond’ (1986). In 1995, she held a solo exhibition at Tokyo’s Hinode-Machi Gallery as part of the residency exhibition programme.
Anne Graham is the recipient of many grants and awards, including the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) Merit Award for Passage, 2000, located in Martin Place as part of the City of Sydney Sculpture Walk
- Writers:
- Murray-Cree, Laura
- Date written:
- 2006
- Last updated:
- 2011
