04 Jody Graham

Drawing is at the core of Jody Graham’s multidisciplinary art. She relentlessly explores new techniques and investigates contemporary drawing practice. To do this she builds on and then moves beyond conventional drawing processes in search of new methods and tools that connect drawing with the fundamental need to make symbolic marks. From the earliest days visiting scrap metal yards and her father’s factory in western Sydney – inspired by the action of machinery and the draftsmen’s tables where they drew designs for machinery by hand – the recurring themes in Jody’s work have centred on the broken, the displaced and the forgotten. Whether expressed in drawing, sculpture, installation or performance, this speaks to her long-nurtured urge to rescue and restore, with the objective of recycling and re-purposing both materials and techniques. Jody has had over ten solo exhibitions and exhibits frequently in important group exhibitions. She won the open Greenway Art Prize in 2017 (and the local prize again in 2020) and has been a finalist in many major art prizes, including the 66th Blake Prize, ‘Sculptures at Scenic World’ in Katoomba, and at the Muswellbrook, Paddington, and NSW Parliament’s Plein Air painting prizes. Her work as been selected twice for the Kedumba Drawing Award Collection, and for the Jacaranda and Swan Hill Drawing Awards; and she has been a finalist in the Dobell, Rick Amor, and Adelaide Perry drawing prizes. Jody’s work is held in the Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings, in Waverley and Blacktown City Council collections, at the Western Sydney Institute, in the Nepean Arts and Design Centre, and in private collections nationally and in the UK, USA, and New Zealand.