All Images: tango.mceffrie and Clare Graham
The unusual yet compelling art of Clare Graham is testament to the belief ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’ The LA based artist creates his art forms by re-energising discarded materials, transforming simple objects, such as bottle tops or tin cans into objects of wonder, aiding our perspective to be shifted from their once lowly state. As he so wryly puts it: “I aim to awaken people to the potential in garbage”. It is this idea that could potentially, not just allow people to save money but make a bit extra on the side. Read on to see how you could make some cash from your trash.
Graham’s art contains millions, if not hundreds of thousands of recycled objects, striving to take substance and form beyond the single unit appeal. His pieces are breathtaking, if not a little bizarre. To the avid collector they are masterpieces, each piece telling an intricate story.
He creates new and intricate structures from buttons, paint by number boards, bottle tops, dominos, yard sticks, cans, swizzle sticks, puzzle pieces, bottle caps and even scrabble boards and scrabble tiles. He rallies friends, family and former colleagues to help him collect these items and waits patiently until he has enough to create his innovative art forms.
To witness the complexity and artistry of these structures is phenomenal, and is a welcome insight into the imagination of this ‘mad genius’, as he is so often regarded. His most striking creation is arguably a five-foot-tall lighting totem draped with 3,500 rosaries and surmounted by a crown of thorns made from wire, it seems to have a direct reference to religion, given the iconography, but connotation aside, it exceeds in filling the spectator with reverence and awe.
Boasting to have recycled three and a half million buttons and seven and a half million can pull tabs due to his creations, one wonders whether his motivation is not just artistic, but environmental. Though it seems this incredible art has an even deeper meaning. Clare Graham claims his art acts as therapy for an obsessive compulsive disorder he harbours within; it helps to settle his ever insatiable desire for order and collectiveness, a desire that has been present since infancy.
Graham was raised in Atikokan, Ontario, in a working class family. Getting by with limited means and four siblings meant he learnt to make do with hand-me-downs and whatever raw materials he could find; these experiences he endured formed in him an appreciation for the small things in life and manifested themselves into expressive art, thus beginning a lifelong aspiration to accumulate collections of cast-off items, and breathe new life into them. As Graham explains: “I’m genetically programmed to deal with things after they’ve had a useful life elsewhere.”
Clare’s work is not often seen in conventional galleries, the sheer magnitude of his work and the confusion in classifying his art accounts for that. It is presented instead in his Los Angeles studio in Highland Park, previously a Safeway supermarket, now named Mor York Gallery. The massive 6,000 square feet is dedicated to showcasing, not only his creations but the paraphernalia himself and his partner Bob Breen, also an artist, have hoarded from year to year.
Strangely enough for someone who doesnt seem to aspire to be conformist, Clare Graham was formerly an employee of family favourite, Disney. By the time he left the renowned company in 1993, Graham had spent 25 years overseeing multitudes of staff in his job as a senior art director for the company and their group of theme parks. But it seems, whether intentional or not, Disney has had a part to play in the inspiration his work, which is reflected in the wonderful fantasy-like element of the pieces.
Clare Graham is a charismatic and distinctive artist who has so magically implemented an area of art few have explored. He challenges us to look beyond his creative structures and find the subtle meaning woven so delicately into his captivating art, he is infatuated by the so called ‘memory trail objects leave behind’ and we are invited to look a little closer, past the humble medium, so we might discover the communicative beauty within these evocative art forms.
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Wow, beautiful artwork and beautifully written.