About
‘Stars and Stripes’ presents a new series of prints and sculptures by Kathryn Graham, developed during and in response to her recent residency at Tamarind Institute in New Mexico, USA.
This body of work navigates the mythological concept of the Open Road and responds to the vast, unfamiliar landscapes of the American Southwest. Graham investigates the idea of the American Dream—its commercial construction, and the notion of the Land of the Free—and the commodification of the landscape. She explores spaces of circulation, communication, and mass consumption, discovering iconographic symbols rooted in American identity.
Graham examines how mystic ideals, constructed landscapes and associated cultural symbols, evoke a deep sense of nostalgia for places never visited, and continue to shape personal and collective narratives. By dissecting and recontextualising these visual symbols, she invites viewers to consider how identity and belonging are formed through the spaces we navigate, both real and imagined.
R-Space is grateful to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for funding the artist’s residency (National Lottery SIAP Travel Award) and this exhibition (National Lottery Project).
About the artist
Kathryn Graham is an award-winning visual artist and lecturer based in Northern Ireland. Her work is a playful exploration of material through a multi-disciplinary practice of printmaking and sculpture. Works manifest as a way to both construct and deconstruct narrative, reflecting on time and memory and examining colliding interpretations of space. Graham holds a degree in Fine Art and a MA in Print. She has extensively exhibited in London and Northern Ireland, and has shown her work internationally in India, China and the US . Her artworks are also held in public collections including at the University of Ulster, Belfast, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
