Remembering Rodney Graham

The Vancouver art community was saddened by the passing of Rodney Graham on October 22, 2022. The Vancouver-based artist, performer, writer and musician has been a pillar of the community for more than four decades–a true icon of BC art. Internationally recognized as one of the most inventive artists of his generation, Graham has been creating photographs, installations, music, book works, posters, videos and films since the late 1970s. During that time, he produced an extensive body of work that engages with the legacy, predicaments and vexations of modern life. Drawing upon diverse sources that range from Pablo Picasso, Lewis Carroll and Sigmund Freud to John Cage and Kurt Cobain, Graham synthesized conceptual rigour and humour to produce art that is both captivating and paradoxical. Known for his minute attention to detail, insatiable curiosity and sly wit, his influence on subsequent generations of artists cannot be underestimated.

Oak Tree, Red Bluff #8 is an example of Graham’s now-iconic photographs of upside-down trees, a motif that he returned to throughout his career. His inverted image of the tree evokes the origins of photography in echoing the reversed and inverted image created by the camera obscura. These works recreate the world from inside the eye of the camera, highlighting the rationalizing processes that frame and define our vision to the world. Presented upside-down, these trees also become metaphors for Graham’s view of the absurdity of the modern world.