Moods and Memories: Art by Amy D. Graham
Amy D. Graham’s painted and mixed-media works focus more on capturing moods and memories than on realistically depicting their subjects.
Eva's Toy, mixed media on pizza box
Her works often remind me of old houses, where scraps of ornate pattern and colour mix together with bare cardboard, like wallpaper peeling off an old wood wall. Amy tends to oscillate between simple, impressionist paintings, and more complex and frenetic mixed-media collages. I like that she often paints on cardboard, and even has a full series of works on pizza boxes. The fragmentary, memento-like style of her work flourishes on this thoroughly un-precious material.
I am particularly fond of Amy’s landscape works, which are for all intents and purposes, abstractions, yet still manage to capture the very specific look and feel of rocky cliffs, wooded green areas, mountain ranges, and more. Her use of collaged textures and wide, coarse brush marks somehow meshes perfectly with smooth gradients of green and blue as sky and ground.
