As Seen on the Radio

Back in July I finally organized a show of artists who’d come on the radio to chat with me. To quote the gallery, “As seen on the radio is an exhibition of work by twenty artists who've been guests on the KONR Out North Radio program Art Matters, and has been curated by the host, artist Graham Dane. The exhibition showcases artists from Alaska and beyond, spans abstraction to figuration, includes photography, painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture, and is as wonderfully eclectic as the radio program that brought them together.”

Top (l to r) Jane Troup (NC) Kaye N Goodrich (AK), David Woodie (AK), Linda Infante Lyons (AK), myself (UK-AK), Sara Tabbert (AK), David Myrvold (Sweden)

Middle (l to r) Alex Rydlinski (AK), Paul Behnke (NM), Asia Freeman (AK) Indra Arriaga (AK) Perry Eaton (AK), Ted Kincaid (AK), Terri Broughton (East Anglia, UK)

Bottom (l to r) Herminia Din (Taiwan), John Coyne (AK) Hal Gage (AK), Bonny Leibowitz (TX), Virginia Katz (CA), Simon Carter (Norfolk, UK)

An interactive virtual exhibition tour is available here.

Now on Spotify

Recently I talked with Matthew Collings (from the UK) and Paul Behnke (USA) in relation to a show they were both in at IGCA up here in Anchorage. Matthew exhibited twenty of his uniquely idiosyncratic drawings about art history; Paul exhibited a series of abstract canvases exploring the use of grey and optical colour mixing.

The two broadcasts are now available on Spotify Hopefully others’ll follow soon

UAA during a pandemic

Teaching at UAA over the last two-and-a-half semesters has been challenging. It isn’t easy to teach drawing online but we managed when we needed to. Fortunately with vaccinations we were able to get back into the drawing studio. Smaller classes due to room occupancy restrictions but considering what was going on beyond the art building I was blessed with a group of dedicated students who worked hard, showed tremendous development with their skills.

Murals

My creative and business partner Linda Infante Lyons is also my wife (and love of my life). We’ve worked on three mural commissions (all within Anchorage) together based upon her imagery: The Latin-American Culture Center (Mountain View, 2015), Government Hill Orchard (2018) and The Nave in Spenard (2020-21). Last year I was awarded a mural commission but it fell through at the last minute. Such is the life of an artist. Several of my concept designs for it (and other projects) have been included here.

Chlorine Aqualung and other works finished in a pandemic.

In February (2020) I had a one-person exhibition at the IGCA here in Anchorage: all work finished whilst enduring an Anchorage-wide shutdown (or “hunkering don” as our mayor termed it).

What was unexpected was that the gallery photographed the show in 3D and set it up as an interactive, online show for those unable to visit in person.

https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=P1MjVvfuLv1&fbclid=IwAR00CNYDbyo-zYJSUz4kWEUI_A8SIgQwB8GbuIZPMsiWi1OjHOl2GQcn4Oww

The Shape of Things to Come

In May 2020 I was invited by Anchorage-based artist John Coyne to participate in an exhibitionhe was curating, The Anthropocene. The pandemic was in its early days; the piece produced for the show was significantly political in scope, probably the most political work of art I’ve completed since the mid-1990s. Four drawings from the Pandemic Drawing series were combined into one piece. The format was was crucial, the four drawings all a reaction to the corona virus displayed as a “swastika”: The Shape of Things to Come (A bastardization of Nomran Rockwell’s Four Freedoms), a reference to both the pandemic but also the perceived worrying state of American politics.

Art Matters.

Back in August 2019 I began a weekly broadcast on Out North Radio (Art Matters) up here in Anchorage (KONR 106.1FM). It airs on Saturday morning from 11.00am to noon Anchorage time. It can be live streamed at http://www.outnorthradio.com/stream.html

It was terrifying then, less so now, begun as an attempt to get Alaskan artists to talk about their work and practices but when no guest is available there’s still an hour to be filled.. Thank god for a background and interest in art history and visual culture in general. It became a show about art and art issues morphing into a show that ventured further. To date I’ve talked to artists in the UK, Sweden and the Lower 48. Recently I downloaded several of what I think of as the better shows on https://www.mixcloud.com/grahamdane/

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Abstraction from Old Masters.

Recently the Alaska Artists Guild asked me to run a small workshop over two evenings on abstraction. I’ve worked from Old Master paintngs - drawn from them for years - so decided to use several from the Renaissance as the starting point. A small group but some strong work produced in a short time period.

Teaching, University of Alaska Anchorage

Fortunate to now be in my second semester at the University of Alaska Anchorage, teaching two Beginning Drawing (ART 105) classes as well as a class on Color Theory (ART 112). Great bunch of students: hard-working and engaged; enthusiastic, who listen to advice and put it into practice. Getting them ready incrementally for life drawing later this month.

ACEs mural project.

Anchorage-based painter and university teaching colleague Steve Gordon asked me to participate in this project, one that dealt with resiliance and trauma after adverse childhood experiences. Twenty artists (including fifteen of his painting students working in teams of five) produced seven large six by ten foot screens about the subject. We talked to one individual and then produced a piece of work that reflected therir experience and recovery. In my case I chose to focus on that aspect, recovery, the hope and joy it can bring, the importance of my subject’s daughter to her ongoing and continuing sobreity.

The final event was hosted by the Alaska Children’s Trust at Spenard’s Church of Love (also the location of my studio) with pieces then going on to Juneau, the Anchorage municipal building and elsewhere to promote awareness of this issue.

Campbell Creek Elementary

A one day project through Anchorage School District's "Northern Journeys" program. Three hours of work time, Dawn Wilcox's second grade students completing a four by eight foot project about the four seasons in Alaska

Spenard Art Camp

Linda Lyons, my wife and creative partner, and I have wanted to set up a regular art camp for some time; this will be the first of many more to come for ages 7-11. Linda concentrated on painting and drawing: plants, birds and the Alaskan coastal landscape. I had the children make animal masks and then a painting - their animal's habitat - to wear. Becky Kendall of Momentum Dance Collective worked with the students on movement relating to their critter.

Our thanks to Candace Blas and Cook Inlet Housing Authority for helping facilitate this and for using the Church of Love to do so. [Photos by Linda Infante Lyons, Tasha Pineda and Lee Post.]

New studio, Spenard, AK.

Artist-in-residency, Razdolna, AK

A two-week residency at one of Alaska's Russian-speaking "Old Believer" villages. Great students, fantastic staff and a badly pot-holed road, well, logging track, in. Subject-matter was the local environment and marine life. Some of the artwork was displayed just after the residency at Homer's Bunnell Street Art Center. My thanks to Asia Freeman and the Bunnell for running and funding this experience for me.

Epicenter

Linda and I have wandered around the Ship Creek area of Anchorage (the city's original founding place) for three years always with cameras. We decided to invite three other artists/photographers to visit the area, react to it and then produce a small body of works each. The result was Epicenter that was exhibited In September through December at the Alaska Humanities Forum, itself located in Ship Creek. Images here are from the install before completion. My thanks to Dean Potter for the article in the Alaska Humanities Forum magazine (pages 10-15).

 

Spenard Fluxus

As part of the Spenards Fluxus project,  a project overseen by Chad Taylor with ArtPlace funding administered by Cook Inlet Housing Authority, I was asked to produce a project that would utilise the steel cubby holes in place at the front of a reclaimed church on Spenard Road, Anchorage. The result was Spitter, a low tech interective version of Twitter for Spenard residents: over-sized scrabble blocks and emojis for public use.

 

https://www.churchoflovespenard.com/reclaiming-asphalt/

Dumpsters

Linda and I painted a dumpster each as part of a pilot project with the Anchorage Downtown Partnership and the Anchorage Municipality. These painted dumpsters are now deployed in the community of Mountain View. Many thanks to the Anchorage Artist's Co-op for allowing us to use their space to complete them.

Post cards to Alaska

A mail art show I curated with the intention of acting both as a fundraiser for the International Gallery of Contemporary Art but to hopefully encourage a dialog between artists and makers across the globe about climate change. Nearly two hundred cards from twenty seven countries arrived. Everything was posted snail mail; cards continued to be installed as they arrived whilst the show was open.