Stage Left

Amanda Jane Graham

17 November 2018 — 5 January 2019

About the Artist(s)

Amanda Jane Graham is a doctoral candidate at Maynooth University. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘The Domestic Abuse Panorama’ at Transart Cavan in 2018. A Tribute To The Irish Community Butte Montana 1916-1919’ at RHA Ashford Gallery in 2017. She was a recipient of ‘The Bullock Lane Residency Award’ in 2017 and, Arts and Health Award 2016 from Uillinn:West Cork Arts Centre and Cavan Arts Office. She was commissioned to write and perform a play for theatre called, ‘The Pram That Helped The Rising’ for the Cavan 2016 centenary celebrations. Her exhibition ‘Warrior’s One in Three’ was invited to be part of the 18th International Psycho Oncology Congress 2016 at the Aviva Stadium, where she presented a talk as part of Psycho Oncology and the Arts. Her work has featured in many publications including The Irish Times. Graham is currently the visual arts correspondent for The Arts Hour on Shannonside and Northern Sound FM and, in 2016 a documentary which she wrote, performed and co-produced was aired on both stations.

‘'Stage Left’ was both an installation and a residency. The imagery of the exhibition marked a playful approach to looking at societal taboos and difficult social issues such as serious illness and violence. The exhibition approached these subjects, by referencing humour in popular culture, a pastiche of humour itself.

Amanda Jane Graham is an artist and researcher concerned with social issues. Her practice is a trajectory of self-reflection, personal narrative, and memoirs where the viewer completes the experience. This involves delving into memories to create humorous fantasies that can be humorous macabre and disturbing.

Graham’s installation blurred the boundaries of personal experiences and narratives by championing the human imagination to escape its bleak realities. The imagery was immersed in the traditions of Warner Brothers, Looney-Tunes and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, ubiquitous and familiar imagery that was a key to penetrating the unconscious memory of the observer to create spontaneous reactions.

Other elements of the installation included autoethnographic drawings and collage. Graham was utilising a familiar material culture to express personal experiences and create affiliations with the collective memory of the viewer. Part of the work included a residential component that allowed for conversational interaction with the artist who was creating a public platform for communal discourse around social issues. The title of her works also played an important role in her work because it directed the viewer into the thought processes at the time of making the work.

Stage Left

Amanda Jane Graham

Stage Left, Amanda Jane Graham

Exhibition Insight

Amanda Jane Graham

Interview