Look Closer: An Interview with Artist Sara Graham
By: Sarah Murphy
Sara Graham is an artist based in British Columbia who focuses on mapping and the way people move through cities, with a particular interest in the temporary and the overlooked. She currently has an exhibition at Art Windsor-Essex curated by Nadja Pelkey and titled Cut-outs, Offcuts, and Cast-offs, which is a combination of some of her previous mapping works, some extracts from her recently unveiled façade commission for the Gordie Howe International Bridge Project, and some new pieces created for the show. Though Sara sees herself primarily as a drawer, the exhibition features photographic sculptures, collage and textural works, and screen prints. Sara has always been inspired by the visionary architecture collective Archigram and their idea of doing the new and impossible, as well as the Situationists International and their focus on understanding and manipulating the urban area where one is working. I sat down for an interview with her to learn a bit more about her practices and inspirations.
SM: What was your inspiration for the exhibition or some of the ideas that went into the bridge project?file
SG: I think that one of the underlying threads of my practice is in mapping, so I feel that there’s a connection between a literal mapping of place and some of the work here, as well as the bridge project. I think that there’s a little bit more of a conceptual idea of mapping in the collage work because the collage work, specifically, does not look like anything recognizable that might have to do with mapping. I feel that the sculptural works might have some reference to architecture but, again, not such a literal idea of mapping. The newer work is really my pursuit of mapping all of the obsolete, discarded items in my community, and so it’s a very different type of mapping, but it’s still rooted in the idea of place, identity, and landscape.
SM: Can you tell me a bit about the medium and materials you used for these pieces?
SG: I will say that I see myself primarily as a drawer, so my entire practice has always been rooted in drawing and anything that I do always stems from drawing first. So, that bridge project, or my collage work, or my screen prints, or even these photographic sculptures, everything has really had a place starting in drawing and really relies on a lot of conventions of drawing, mark-making, and texture. The collage work as well as the photographic sculptures rely on ink drawings that I make of stripes and just that sort of very slow, methodical process of creating paper, and then from there, converting those papers, cutting out objects, and also using the offcuts of these to create other work as well.
SM: Would you say that drawing is your favourite medium to use or did you really enjoy doing some of the sculptural works for this exhibit; what would you say is your favourite medium that you’ve used?
SG: You know, it’s funny because since I see everything as drawing, drawing is my favourite and is my medium, and it just so happens that it might look different in different works but I, for myself, don’t distinguish it from drawing. So, everything that I do is rooted in drawing, and I know that a lot of my body of work over time has shifted and some work looks different, but it might look different, but conceptually it still all always comes from the same place, and it still always has started as drawing.
SM: Going back to the bridge project, can you tell me what you were asked when you were given the commission? What was the general idea and how much freedom were you given?
SG: I will say I had complete freedom to do what I wanted to do. When I had my first orientation of the scope of the project, there were some technical parameters that I was given, and I almost feel that those, in themselves, were more restrictive than what I could actually make, or what I could create. So, the two restrictions were that with the relief, it was only able to be two inches high and that I was only going to be able to create two panels. There were twenty-two in total, and right then and there when I understood that scope, it had all automatically already changed what I was imagining because I thought that I might be able to make more different panels. I felt that those two sort of technical aspects kind of helped forge the design and helped me to understand what I was going to do. I know that it had been expressed that one of the reasons they thought that I might be a suitable artist for this project was just my interest in mapping and the ability to maybe incorporate an artwork that encompassed Canada or the nation as opposed to something that was a little bit for regionally specific; and that sort of made sense to me that of course this project needed to be Canadian or national in scope. To me, then, mapping just made the absolute most sense.
SM: Transferring over to this whole exhibition a bit more, can you talk about the title and how you came up with it?
SG: When Nadja and I were first talking about the project, we actually came up with another title. She had actually suggested, and I thought it was a really great title, it was Sublimated City because of the process of [the sculptural] works which is a dye-sublimation, and I really kind of like that. When I started working with these works and I had a really good idea of how they were going to sit in the space and I started to work on the collages, the collages just took a slightly different turn. What I had originally thought I was going to do wasn’t quite working out, so I was playing around and I remembered that I was going to include the previous, slightly older work, I thought that maybe I just need to have it be a little bit more black and white because I was trying to add a lot more colour. That’s when the offcuts of these [sculptural] works started to take precedence in [the collage] work. When I started to really think about the nature of all of these works — cut-outs, castoffs, and offcuts — in a lot of ways they all share that similarity, but especially [the collages]. I talked to Nadja afterwards and said to her that I don’t think I can use the title, it doesn’t quite make as much sense, and I think that this title now makes a lot more sense because it really is reflecting the entirety of the show.
SM: Off of your comment about colour in the pieces, can you talk about your choice of colour in the exhibition?
SG: Ironically, this actually stems back to the London location map work. A little over thirteen years ago, I was invited to have a show at Museum London, and they really were interested in my doing a sort of psycho-geography, so kind of looking around, wandering the city to see if I could come up with work that really reflected the community. One of the things I noticed were these yellow pipes that were on an industrial building. I got very intrigued by them and I was asking questions about them afterwards and nobody knew what I was talking about, and then I started seeing them a bunch more in London. As I did a bit of research on them, I found out that in Ontario, our external gas pipes are painted yellow so that they’re recognizable. So, they’re considered “safety yellow,” but the funny thing was when I went back to Toronto, I started seeing them in Toronto, everyone’s telling me they don’t know what I’m talking about, how can we be missing all these yellow pipes? I did a show that also had all these yellow pipes, they were sculptural works, and when people were asking me “why yellow?” I said because they’re everywhere and nobody believed me! When I started pointing them out they said that they see them everywhere now. I just thought it was really interesting that this yellow that is known in this industry as “safety yellow,” and yet we don’t see it, like at all. I think that that’s always been why I include yellow in my work. I’m really trying to say to the viewer “slow down,” it’s like a caution to pay attention. I’m hoping that especially with some of these new collages, the work really does require a slow read because they are drawing-based, they’re not meant to be seen super fast. I think that once you start to engage with them, you start to see more patterns, and the yellow there is, again, saying caution, slow down, look.
SM: You said you get a lot of your inspiration from walking or taking public transit through a city, what kind of things do you notice or like to look at when you do this? Does it change from city to city?
SG: I think that walking in a new environment is always really exciting just because everything is new. I have noticed that in my experience when you walk or drive the same route you start to gloss over and recognize things. So, for me, always looking at something new is by far the best experience. I also feel that going down one-way streets the opposite way is actually a very interesting way to look at certain things. What I feel like I’m really looking for though, is the overlooked. A lot of things that really capture my interest would probably not capture other people’s interests because they might perceive them as garbage or something that’s just been blown there and will eventually move on. I look at construction sites, too, because there’s a lot of movement and stuff that’s happening; it’s always changing. There are always new piles or smaller piles, and there’s activity, and I find that it’s those changes that I find the most interesting. So, when I’m looking at my environment, I’m actually looking for those changes to see if there’s something that I’ve missed, something that I haven’t seen before, or something new that’s been blown in or discarded. I’m always trying to look for something new.
SM: What do you hope people get out of your exhibition? How do you hope they feel when they walk away from it?
SG: Well, I hope they like the colour yellow! I think that it’s kind of a trick question because I think on the surface, a lot of these works might not necessarily reveal some of the things that I’ve been thinking about. So, I think my hope is that the work is treated like a drawing in the sense that people are looking up close and maybe figuring out or looking to see what’s happening. I hope that I have provided a slow read. I think that there are some clues here that I might be speaking to mapping and I might be speaking to some type of architectural space, and if that’s all that they come with, then that’s absolutely fine with me. I just am hoping that once they are maybe intrigued to learn a little bit more and once they understand my interest in this sort of slow wandering and understanding of your city, they might have a different perspective of their own environment. That, to me, is actually what’s more important.
Make sure to check Cut-outs, Offcuts, and Cast-Offs at AWE from March 14th to May 28th!
